DB's Song of the Day (day 228): "LONG BLACK LIMOUSINE" (1969) Elvis Presley

On today’s date in 1977, the King passed away. It was death day for Elvis. I turned 18 the next day and was on a road trip to Florida for the first (and only) time. So, yeah, it was “fitting,” in a sense that I was traveling through the south. My companion was old enough to remember when Elvis first hit, not me. He also told me about the Elvis comeback special in 1968 and the album From Elvis in Memphis, from which comes today’s song. I missed all that at the time. For me, Elvis was a very active performer in old black and white footage and kind of a clown in his movie roles. Then there was the most current phase at the time: sequined white jumpsuit and middle-aged fans getting all goosey in Las Vegas. What did that have to do with rock? At that time I was still rather indifferent to rock’n’roll per se. Well, except for The Rolling Stones. Everything I was into had more to do with folk and prog. Americana was something I tended to give a wide berth to, then. Except for Dylan.

Of course, everyone owes Elvis some debt. The Beatles covered him, Dylan tried too—“Blue Moon”—and Bruce has, Nick Cave too, John Cale did a unique take on “Heartbreak Hotel,” Elvis Costello took his name and also covered him, Bono and U2 gave us “Elvis Presley and America,” and Neil Young “He Was the King,” and Richard Thompson “From Galway to Graceland,” and Paul Simon “Graceland,” and Kate Bush “King of the Mountain,” and I’m sure he crops up in lots more songs I’m not recalling at the moment. Not too long ago, I bought expanded CDs of his first album and Memphis.

That latter album gave us “In the Ghetto” which is a song I definitely remember from that time as we had the 45. A song apropos of the many comments hitting the internet about the killing of Michael Brown. The song, with some sentimental flourishes, takes a look at what growing up in the ghetto is like—it’s an attempt to create some context for blacks turning to crime, in desperation and in anger, and getting gunned down young. The point is to make white society see its complicity with the situation—poverty stemming from racism—that creates a threat of violence met with violence. But the song itself creates an image of the young black man with a gun in his hand being gunned down—as a threat to others. It helps sustain the idea that one should shoot first and determine the level of threat later, which leads to things like the Brown shooting. In other words, the situation that “In the Ghetto” describes has still not changed—enough—but the image it helped popularize is that of “armed black youths” out to take revenge for their socio-economic hardship. The song that would tell the tale of the death of the unarmed and unthreatening would have to look harder at the guy who actually pulls the trigger, especially in a culture that congratulates itself on its “free to bear firearms” mythology.

Consider that an aside, I guess, on a big hit Elvis had when I was still a kid, in a working-class white neighborhood, looking askance at those inner city blues that Elvis’s song—written by Mac Davis—tried to apprise us of. But I picked today’s song as a way of paying tribute to Elvis’s death and the mark he left. “Long Black Limousine” is one of those clever country songs sung by the gal left behind in Hicksville watching the Local Hero return in a long black limousine to where he hailed from. We soon grasp that the limo is a hearse. So it could either be wry or a tear-jerk. I’m inclined to view such things ironically, which is why I’m not a good audience for Country, generally. But I can imagine versions of the song that would aim to have us dissolve in tears over the trick played by fate—or a comeuppance from God? Whatever. Elvis plays it very soulful, giving a vocal that actually gets quite worked up, after starting with a subdued narrative delivery that sets up the “rich friends” and “fancy cars” in contrast to the hicks in the sticks.

The strength of From Elvis in Memphis is in combining the country rock stylings that were Elvis’s gift with “white soul” arrangements—horns, backup singers—that let Elvis show off his command of a repertoire that included the kind of inspired piety that made him a big Gospel draw. The song feels remarkably spiritual in its opening—then gets a bit more bop, with the “oh yeah” doing double business. The tune presses on, with a trumpet solo and the backups stepping forward, then Elvis gets the emotive catch in his voice and pushes into breathy confession—“I never, never owned my heart or my dreams / They’re with you in that long black limousine”—with that horn stepping up to make us think, maybe, the heavens will part.

I have to confess I always found too much corniness and commercialism in much of the King’s post-Beatles era work, which is just a way of saying that it was aimed for the stations my mom listened to—where Elvis and Neil Diamond and Frankie singing “My Way” would eventually give way to Billy Joel and Barry Manilow and Jim Croce. And always the threat of The Carpenters and Barbra.

And yet, all that said, I do like this song, and am growing to like the album (hell, I’m middle-aged, y’know, older than my dad was when he became a grand-dad thanks to yours truly). I like the figure of the “Long Black Limousine” as both the sign of stardom and the sign of death. And some stars are never so big as when they die, suddenly becoming saints, savants, fonts of healing wisdom, hearts that suffered for our sins. Elvis was swiftly deified, a latter-day Jesus able to heal and return from the dead at will. The obsession with Elvis Transfigured spawned a subculture I can only shake my head about, like I do about the legend of Boggy Creek. Perhaps the best treatment of the Elvis Cult, in music, is U2’s “Elvis Ate America.”

Elvis the pelvis / Elvis the psalmist / Elvis the genius / Elvis, generous / Elvis, forgive us / Elvis, pray for us

DB's Song of the Day (day 91):"BOY FROM TUPELO" (2000), Emmylou Harris

Happy April Fool’s Day! I’m rather partial to the month of April, in general, so let’s hope it inspires some good song selections.

Today’s song is a great “I’m moving on” song, and it follows, in the Song of the Day series, on a song by Elvis Presley, rightly so. Elvis, of course, is “that boy from Tupelo / He’s the king and he oughta know.” And tomorrow is the birthday of Emmylou Harris, so that makes this a fitting choice.

Emmylou Harris first came to my notice for singing back-up on records by other artists I bought, such as Bob Dylan’s Desire (1975) and Neil Young’s American Stars 'n' Bars (1976). I didn’t listen to her own albums until she recorded with Daniel Lanois, Wrecking Ball (1995), and only got to that after 2000’s Red Dirt Girl, which is the album to go to, by her, in my opinion. There are some accomplished compositions on there, not least today’s song. The production of the album is a bit too sanitized perhaps, but, given what Country music had become by then, that wasn’t such a problem. The video shows her singing it live and I like the little smile she gives at the verse “I’ll never know why or how / Oh, but baby, it’s too late now.” Emmylou has a firm, unimpassioned voice, very measured, very discrete, as we might say. She never wails, she never lets go. Very prim, but “clear as an unmuddied stream.”

The song, in the studio version, hums along with big drums doing the work of communicating the rhythm of the road as our very-together gal takes her parting shots: “You don’t love me, this I know / Don’t need a Bible to tell me so / I hung around a little too long / I was good, but now I’m gone.”  Adios, amigo.

How gone? As Johnny Carson might ask.  “Gone like the buffalo / That boy from Tupelo.”  And “gone like the five and dime.” We’re talking really gone. Or are we? Aren’t these things kinda like national symbols of something or other? This little lady knows that as she goes away she leaves behind a big myth. A mighty big myth.

Emmylou and Gram

This kind of passive-aggressive adios really peaks when she owns that “It’s a shame and it’s a sin / All that I could’ve been / To you”: “Your last chance Texaco / Your sweetheart of the rodeo / A Juliet to your Romeo / The border you cross into Mexico.”  That shit’s inspired. This gets even more mythic—the “last chance Texaco” is the one before you hit the badlands, “sweetheart of the rodeo” is The Byrds album dominated by Gram Parsons, Emmylou’s first big collaborator (see Grievous Angel), earlier she was “Maybelle on the radio,” where Maybelle, of course, is Maybelle Carter, matriarch of the Carter Family. Juliet and Romeo I hope I don’t have to explain (though one wonders if the tragic aspects of that liaison are considered—elsewhere on the album is a very haunting song called “Tragedy”), and the border into Mexico should speak for itself—seeming to indicate that this “boy” knows about running and also that he knows which way she’ll be running. When Texas just ain’t south enough no more, there’s just one place you can go.

It’s a great kiss-off song, y’know, that kind of song, as Dylan said about his own “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” you can sing to yourself sometimes to make yourself feel better: “There's nothing left for me 'round here / Looks like it's time to disappear.” Boy, do I know that feeling! But if it is really a shame and a sin, and maybe almost a tragedy, well, then, the myth is going to stick around.

“Just ask that boy from Tupelo.”

No fooling.

DB's Song of the Day (day 90):"HEARTBREAK HOTEL" (1956) Elvis Presley

“And although it’s always crowded / You still can find some room / For broken-hearted lovers / To cry there in the gloom.”  Very appropriate, for today began very gloomy, gray and dull, then snow. Really. Maybe two inches or more before it ended.

Today’s song is the best Elvis Presley song. There was worry that the song was too “morbid” for a Top 40 hit, but a hit it was, in 1956. It left its mark on many who heard it then, people like Keith Richards and John Lennon, who would be major influences on their own generation. The song is stark and lean, sung with an amazing bravado that leaps out of the speakers and grabs you by whatever is grabbable: “Well, since my baby left me / I’ve found a new place to dwell.” We’re all ready to go along with him, to take a walk down lonely street.

The way Elvis slurs over the chorus “You make me so lonely, baby / Well, I’m so lonely / I’ll be so lonely I could die” is definitive. The cool mumble gets established right then, the elision of diction for the sake of effect. And I’ve always loved “The bellhop’s tears keep flowing / The desk clerk’s dressed in black”—it’s easy to imagine Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, maybe Peter Lorre, signing up for those roles. It’s not a funereal song but it definitely rocks with an eye on the end, we might say.

The song was memorably covered by John Cale on Slow Dazzle in 1975, with a vocal that reminds me of Karloff, and when Cale sings “we could die” he screams it as if he’s actually ready to. Elvis doesn’t go for such histrionics; he just rides that superb strum and lets the reverb do a lot of the work for him. The notion of a “heartbreak hotel” is quite an inspiration. There should be a place you can check into to wallow in your misery—“if your baby leaves you / And you need a new place to dwell.” And it’s like that, isn’t it? You check in and stay as long as you need to. Kind of like a soul asylum.

Today’s song is in honor of an “Elvis man” who departed this world way too soon—my brother-in-law, Leoance Simpson, who turned 8 the year this song came out, and died this month at age 65. He is deeply mourned and greatly missed.

So long, Leoance, it was good knowing you. Thanks for everything.