ELVIS PRESLEY – "The Wonder Of You"

The biggest-selling single of 1970, and also the last UK number one Elvis had in his lifetime. Originally recorded by Ray Peterson, who had a US hit with it a decade previously. I always view it as Presley slightly sending up his audience – “I guess I’ll never know the reason why/You love me as you do/That’s the wonder…the wonder of you”; the subtext being, “dammit, you suckers are falling for this???!!”

In a way, I guess it’s sort of sad that this got to be a Number One when ‘In The Ghetto’ and ‘Suspicious Minds’ didn’t (at least not on this chart). But there is a certain likeability about this, undeserved though it might be.

Supposedly, Elvis asked Ray Peterson for permission to cover the song. Peterson said, “You don’t need to ask, you’re Elvis Presley” and Elvis retorted, “I do need to ask, you’re Ray Peterson.” I’m not sure I believe it either.

It’s a half-hearted performance at it’s best. Elvis is just going through the motions of being an Elvis impersonator. The voice is heavy and tired–rather like the man himself–and the performance seems rushed, as befits a throwaway piece. This is not to say that he’d lost it completely–“Suspicious Minds” shows he could still perform credibly, even if not with the panache he still had a decade earlier.

So I wonder what RCA was thinking in releasing such an uninspired disc. Could it be they perceived the vacuum the Beatles left behind them was so huge–and that Elvis really was so miraculous in his “comeback”–that just about anything touched by the hand of The King would do?

People have been known to believe crazier things…..

If the Elvis discography thus far has taught us anything, it’s that RCA always thought anything with the Elvis name on it would do – and indeed, Sony BMG still seem to think that. I don’t even think this is the worst Elvis Number One, still less the worst Elvis single. But the more I think about it, the worse it sounds.

daniel there’s lots of really great stuff in 70s elvis. mind you not “the wonder of you”, which used to always blow my mind with how often it would somehow manage to squeeze onto greatest hits with other much better (and much better known to me at least) hits somehow getting left off. i don’t think i ever ever heard it on oldies or country radio growing up and i definitely heard ‘moody blue’, ‘kentucky rain’, ‘don’t cry daddy’, ‘promised land’, and obv. ‘always on my mind’, ‘suspicious minds’, ‘in the ghetto’, ‘burning love’, and god knows ‘an american trilogy’.

I have to disagree with a number of you on this one, I think it’s a cracking record. Not in the same class as the abovementioned number 2 hits, I grant you, but I’ve always thought songs like this and “Burning Love” demonstrate just why “Vegas Elvis” worked – the powerful voice and arrangement making a great statement out of a fairly slight song. And there’s no need to dismiss the original as an impersonator!

When you’re a kid, anybody who was famous before you were born seems like ancient history. We’re just coming now to the period when I really got interested in music, and when my mum played Elvis it sounded like someone from long ago… but in 1970 Elvis was 35 – the same age as “Born in the USA”-era Springsteen, the age Richard Ashcroft is now and a year older than Liam Gallagher.

You can hear Elvis begin to send himself up during the verses where he starts to sing the backing whoa-oh-ohs as well as the lead. His personality shines through the song and although no longer at his peak he still injects just enough passion to pull it off. I was fond of it at the time and I still am. Shortly after this he went into an artistic slide that he never recover from.

“Elvis should have lived long enough to cover “The Drugs Don’t Work.”” – see also “Love Is A Battlefield”, “How Soon Is Now?”*, “I’m On Fire”…

* ok, I only really thought this one was a good idea when I was 15.

speaking of late potential elvis covers – does anyone else have as much difficulty figuring out what the hell elvis’ “golden years” would’ve sounded like if he had actually followed thru and covered it?

Great new tangent, Crackerjack cover versions, deserves a thread to itself. They did “Bohemian Rhapsody” one week…

haha weirdly enough if you asked me ‘what’s crackerjack?’ i couldn’t’ve told you (or at least wouldn’t’ve said ‘brit children’s tv show’) AND YET I THINK I HAVE SEEN THAT EPISODE!!!! i remember shortly after arriving in iceland one morning hungover watching this old rerun of a british children’s tv show WHEREIN A SCENARIO IDENTICAL TO AS DESCRIBED ABOVE TOOK PLACE and i remember thinking ‘europe’s fucking AWESOME’.

Hey,

Actually, being an American (United States Person as opposed to the rest of the Western Hemisphere…who are all Americans).

Elivs and this song, The Wonder of You, fits nice.

Some know of Elvis’ decline. That’s fine. But, Elvis, when he did this recording live knew what he was doin.

In the Holiday show I’m doing with “challenged” kids, it fits.

Not only fits, but is apropos.

Elivs is easy to pick on, especially in his latter days. But, he still sang songs that were cool.

I hope I never become as cynical as some here.

What a shame, yes, some are talking more about outside the song.

Hey, IT IS THE SONG! Not the magician who sings it. Or, maybe it is.

I just hope all cynics and “there ya’ go” types are just a little bit warmed.

Merry Christmas (or Holiday…as the politically correct say) and may the New Year in 2007 be cool.

Mike

I think his concert performances are really a great achievment. There have been few universaly popular performers who have perfomed so many concerts in such a short space of time as Elvis did between 1968 and 1977, I believe it was over 1000, in venues large and small. When I listen to this particular track, it seems to sum up Elvis, effortlessly (almost casually) delivering a number that few can reproduce, even with the aid of modern sound manipulation systems. Almost celestial in nature, given the perfouness of the message being delivered. I was 12 in March 1977, when I first heard an Elvis track released when he was still alive (Moody Blue) and it lept out at me, from then on I was captivated by his voice. This number “The wonder of you” was played at a funeral of a friend, with great impact given the acustics in a small chapel, Elvis’ voice and delivery so devine. I also lost my father recently, and have been listening to this song more than ever, gives me encouragement and inspiration to make a positive impact on my child and those around me in the same as my father had on me and those around him. A fitting memorial also to Elvis.

The Wonder of the Female: http://musicsoundsbetterwithtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/grace-of-boy-kinks-lola.html Thanks for reading, everyone!

Crackerjack cover versions? One I fondly remember was Don Mclean as Doctor Jekyll being chased by Peter Glaze as his shocked, trying-to-stop-him-downing-the-potion Victorian chum around the lab, tauntingly singing Queen’s “Now I’m Here” – and, of course, triumphantly emerging as Hyde on the line “I’m just a – JUST A NEW MAN!” There was also a Doctor Who sketch – “‘Ello My Dalek!” – where the whole song concerned wasn’t sung, but the Doc (McLean again) gleefully confronts one of his well-known bionic nemeses by wondering if he’s “come down from Somerset, where the Cyber-apples grow”…

I have a soft spot for this one, so 7/10.