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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

...to ask what your favourite Elvis Presley record is ?

108 replies

IndigoSpritz · 18/04/2019 19:47

Difficult choice. I like Wooden Heart for its twee cutesiness, and Kentucky Rain and It's Only Love for their drama. But I think my favourite is Always On My Mind. Perfect realisation of what could have saved a relationship, in song. The Pet Shop Boys and Willie Nelson versions just don't cut it for me.

OP posts:
CSIblonde · 19/04/2019 03:48

One Night with You (B side to Heartbreak Hotel). It's beyond raunchy & his vocal rasp which he never used much again is insane.

Then If I can Dream & In the Ghetto (I read they embodied his personal values & he fought his Manager to do them).

JenniferJareau · 19/04/2019 03:52

Are you lonesome tonight. Love that song.

brizzlemint · 19/04/2019 03:52

A broken one Grin

ChocChocButtons · 19/04/2019 07:05

Fools rush in.

dontcallmelen · 19/04/2019 11:59

Yy one night with you, sooo raunchy & quality of his voice was mesmerising.

FastnetLundyRockall · 19/04/2019 12:11

Heartbreak Hotel

MinesaPinot · 19/04/2019 12:26

In the Ghetto
American Trilogy (it was my late dad's favourite as well)
If I can dream

The Wonder of You reminds me of one of our work Christmas parties. We had karaoke (yes, I know, but bear with me) and one of our Post Room lads got up and said he was going to sing this. We all rolled our eyes a bit, but he sang a storming version, only bettered by Elvis in my opinion. I always think of that moment when I hear it and can still see the looks of amazement on everyone's face - brilliant.

SouthWestmom · 19/04/2019 12:36

Just asked Alexa to play one night with you.

Never heard it before.

I think Elvis has always been known as a weirdo. - the guns, morgues and underage stuff.

FromDespairToHere · 19/04/2019 12:59

One Night With You. Elvis at his very most sexy.

PajamasnoDramas · 19/04/2019 13:11

A bit polar opposite but

In the ghetto
Viva Las Vegas

Charlottejbt · 19/04/2019 13:22

I was going to say Young and Beautiful, but in the context of a predilection for underage teenage girls, perhaps that's unfortunate. (Actually I read Priscilla's book about a year into my Elvis obsession when I would have been 11 or so, and 14 then seemed totally grown up, verging on ancient. It was given to me, together with Lucy de Barbin's hoax Elvis book, by a great aunt who was very religious but had a liking for mildly racy literature.)

So I'll take Loving You, That's All Right Mama, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Tender Feeling, and pretty much all of his gospel records. Plus probably dozens more I've forgotten.

I'd always wondered who actually liked Wooden Heart! I think it's one of the most execrable things ever committed to vinyl, even though the tune itself would be pretty given a less twee treatment. DP does like it, though he was still just about a child when it was first released.

I don't know what to say to people who say that liking Elvis is lowbrow. It's a fair cop, I guess. Trying to explain the appeal of a pop singer is like trying to explain why a joke is funny. For me, there's a certain spiritual quality he had, which is rare in pop but not the sole preserve of art music either. The vocal expert Stefan Zucker once wrote of Francesco Tamagno "He is emotionally profound, and most of his records reveal a pathos, also a fuoco sacro, that to me are deeply moving." These words could just as well be applied to Elvis. There's a kind of unmediated emotional rawness to both singers, combined with a charisma that gives you a sense of the sublime, even the numinous. Plus a kind of vivid larger-than-lifeness which jumps out of the ancient grooves and makes these voices of long-dead singers more real and more present than any living thing I can think of. It's hard to describe without falling into either inarticulacy on one hand or Pseud's Corner on the other.

tl;dr You either "get" Elvis or you don't. It's nice that so many of us do. :)

JeffreyBeaver · 19/04/2019 13:24

Burning Love, I'm having it played as I get cremated

Redcrayons · 19/04/2019 13:29

Viva Las Vegas (the films always remind me of Saturday afternoons at my grandparents because they were big fans)
Marie's The Name of His Latest Flame
A Little Less Conversation (in charts when I got married so reminds me of my honeymoon)

He has some great songwriters, In fact there's not many I don't like.

ListenLinda · 19/04/2019 13:32

Love so many.

But The Wonder of You was our first dance :)

That song has so many special memories

Pinkarsedfly · 19/04/2019 13:34

In The Ghetto - I cry every time.
Suspicious Minds - because it’s brilliant.
A Little Less Conversation - reminds me of my DS when he was about 2 - he called it ‘cumma cumma’ and we’d run round and round the kitchen island to it Smile

Charlottejbt · 19/04/2019 13:42

I don't like If I Can Dream. It sounds affected and insincere, like he's imitating another singer with a more bombastic delivery (Tom Jones?) It's a vocal mid-life crisis. He really crosses into parody with that agonised, raspy, face-contorting delivery of "we're lost in a cloud/with too much rain" and it just goes downhill from there with the bizarre arm movements at the end. (You know the video, white suit, 68 comeback special.) It's embarrassing and it breaks the first law of singing, which is Always Sing In Your Own Voice or end up sounding bogus and ridiculous. After this Elvis did go back to singing in his own voice, so he knew I was right. :)

Samcro · 19/04/2019 13:50

Way Down
but love many more

Shufflebumnessie · 19/04/2019 13:52

Suspicious minds.

IndigoSpritz · 19/04/2019 15:27

In the interests of balance, his worst record is, in my opinion, A Little Less Conversation. Even Hal Blaine's drumming can't save it.

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Charlottejbt · 19/04/2019 15:55

@IndigoSpritz Really, worse than this? :)

m.youtube.com/watch?v=iS2sKSN2Js8

I don't know why I'm knocking Elvis - I love Elvis. I guess it's because he was such an amazing artist that the lack of quality control during his middle period is so frustrating. It gives ammo to people who want to say he was cheesy and rubbish, not that they can point to any male pop singer with a better voice. Btw I love My Boy, along with other songs in a similarly OTT sentimental vein like Don't Cry Daddy, or Mama Liked the Roses. Nobody's saying they are great art (hopefully not anyway) but I think this kind of unashamed emotionality is so much more satisfying than the shallow, posturing "cool" that pop/rock is usually associated with.

My main takeaway from the release of A Little Less Conversation is that even a posthumously released B side of a phoned-in performance of an indifferent song was a gazillion times better than anything else in the charts at the time, because of Elvis' amazing voice and presence.

Threeminis · 19/04/2019 21:50

On the back of this thread I have spent my evening listening to one of the Elvis playlists on sonos.

Clickncollect · 21/04/2019 20:44

As a PP said, you either get Elvis or you don’t. My Dad was a huge Elvis fan so we grew up listening to him/watching his films repeatedly! My Dad died 2.5 years ago and whenever I hear any Elvis songs, it makes me feel close to him. At his funeral we played:

Any Day Now
Amazing Grace
If I Can Dream
American Trilogy
How Great Thou Art
Burning Love

But there are so so so many other amazing songs and not so well known, some are even from the cheesy film era:

Long Black Limousine
Such A Night
Tomorrow Never Comes
It Hurts Me
Kentucky Rain
So Near Yet So Far
The Lady Loves Me
Way Down

His version of You’ll Never Walk Alone is superb!
I just love his voice and his star quality. Truly a one off.
I could talk all night on this subject!!

MagicKingdomDizzy · 21/04/2019 20:47

Marie's her name (his latest flame)

HoldMyGirl · 21/04/2019 20:52

Blue Christmas with Martina McBride at Christmas.

I play it quite a lot, from mid November every year Blush

Jenniferturkington · 21/04/2019 20:52

Devil in disguise
In the ghetto

I wasn’t a fan until we visited Graceland, it was fascinating and us and our young children became big fans!

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