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Speaker 1: Pushkin to introduce this episode. I just want to relate

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Speaker 1: how random my journey to it was. I was reading

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Speaker 1: a book I can't even remember what it was, and

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Speaker 1: then a footnote I always read the footnotes. The author

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Speaker 1: said the psychologist whose work she was referring to had

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Speaker 1: done a very strange paper once about Elvis, at which

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Speaker 1: point I stopped reading the book and looked up the

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Speaker 1: very strange paper about Elvis. It was by Alan Elms.

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Speaker 1: It was amazing, So immediately I go to the next question.

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Speaker 1: Was Alan Elms still alive? Yes, living in Davis, California.

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Speaker 1: Next step, I gotta go see him. So I immediately

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Speaker 1: fly to San Francisco rent a car, but the rental

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Speaker 1: agency is out of all cars except for a bright

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Speaker 1: canary yellow Chevy Corvette, which I take happily. But then

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Speaker 1: halfway to Davis, driving at speeds that are very, very

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Speaker 1: far from legal, I start thinking, what's this guy going

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Speaker 1: to think of me if I show up in a

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Speaker 1: bright canary yellow Corvette. He's a brilliant psychologist. I don't

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Speaker 1: want him pre judging me, So I park it around

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Speaker 1: the corner, walk to his house and spend a lovely

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Speaker 1: afternoon with him. Sadly he was feeling poorly at the

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Speaker 1: time and didn't speak well enough for me to use

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Speaker 1: the tape of his interview. But my spontaneous journey set

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Speaker 1: the correct tone, I think for this whole episode, which

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Speaker 1: is that it was intended to be a caper, a

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Speaker 1: grand caper in which many crazy, unexpected things happen, and

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Speaker 1: as it will discover. So it was, by the way,

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Speaker 1: the thing that Alan Elms and I talked the most

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Speaker 1: about was not actually his Alva's paper. It was another

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Speaker 1: even more genius thing he once wrote about the Wizard

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Speaker 1: of Oz, which I promise you that I will get

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Speaker 1: to one day. Here a visionist history, Join me for

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Speaker 1: a walk down revisionist history memory Lane. The New York

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Speaker 1: Psychoanalytics Society and Institute is in a very formal European

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Speaker 1: style building on a quiet side street on the upper

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Speaker 1: east side of Manhattan. Oak tables, high ceilings. In the library,

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Speaker 1: long ribbons of leather bound volumes, and five different busts

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Speaker 1: of Sigmund Freud all in a row. I went there

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Speaker 1: to meet with the Society's president, Michelle Press, a psychoanalyst

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Speaker 1: herself with that lovely quality of patience and openness. The

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Speaker 1: best therapists always have. I wanted to talk with her

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Speaker 1: about a subject that I've always found deeply interesting. What

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Speaker 1: Freud called parapraxis, but not just anyone's parapraxis, the King's parapraxis.

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Speaker 1: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History,

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Speaker 1: my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. After the first

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Speaker 1: two episodes on Memory earlier this season, I decided to

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Speaker 1: do a third. It involves an odyssey. This odyssey took

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Speaker 1: me from the pages of the Handbook of Psychobiography to

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Speaker 1: a shrine in Tennessee, to the legendary Battery Studios in

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Speaker 1: Times Square, and to the hushed offices of the New

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Speaker 1: York Psychoanalytics Society, where I sat with Michelle Press in

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Speaker 1: search of an answer to a simple question. What if

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Speaker 1: a singer couldn't remember the words to a song, a

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Speaker 1: song he had sung a thousand times, particular parts of the song,

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Speaker 1: the same part of the song, over and over. What

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Speaker 1: would that tell us about the singer?

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Speaker 2: It was a term in German faulty acts or faulty functions.

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Speaker 2: It would be slips of the tongue. It could be misreadings, mishearings,

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Speaker 2: but it's Freud's invention.

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Speaker 1: Michelle Press is talking about parapraxis from the Greek para

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Speaker 1: meaning abnormal, beyond praxis meaning act, abnormal speech acts, or

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Speaker 1: as they are more colloquially known, Freudian slips. Does Freud

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Speaker 1: mean that there are no accidental slips or that if

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Speaker 1: you look at the range of accidental slips you can

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Speaker 1: find meaning in some.

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Speaker 2: So when you read him, he doesn't want to sound

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Speaker 2: that kind of definitive. He'll say, yes, maybe one might

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Speaker 2: prove that there are some that are truly accidental, or

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Speaker 2: truly a result of fatigue or of maybe some medical illness.

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Speaker 2: But he said, if you do the work, one will

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Speaker 2: find the reasons for the slip, that they're not accidental,

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Speaker 2: that they have. He called it a sense, and that

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Speaker 2: that's sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious

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Speaker 2: ideas that are trying to find expression but are because

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Speaker 2: they're unacceptable. They emerge in these ways when one might

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Speaker 2: be unguarded.

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Speaker 1: Now, is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion

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Speaker 1: of parapraxis?

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Speaker 3: Yes?

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Speaker 1: What was a less.

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Speaker 4: Over here sun metal strain.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six early in his career, Elvis Presley

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Speaker 1: recorded a song called Old Shep. It's a sentimental song

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Speaker 1: about a boy and his dog, Shep, written in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties by Red Foley. The dog gets old and sick.

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Speaker 1: The vet says there's no hope. The boy aims his

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Speaker 1: rifle at Shep to put him out of his misery,

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Speaker 1: but he can't pull the trigger. He lies down next

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Speaker 1: to Shep cradles him in his arms as the dog

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Speaker 1: dies and the song ends.

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Speaker 5: Old Shelbie has gone weather, good dog, It's gold.

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Speaker 6: And whoever. But if dolls have a heaven.

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Speaker 4: That's one way I know.

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Speaker 1: Old shepherds.

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Speaker 7: Wonderful.

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Speaker 1: Old Shep is not one of Elvis's more famous songs,

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Speaker 1: but in an essay published in two thousand and five

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Speaker 1: on Elvis, the psychologists Alan Elms and Bruce Heller having

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Speaker 1: aside about a small but significant discrepancy between the original

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Speaker 1: version of Old Shep and Elvis's cover. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: come back to Heller and Elms in a while because

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Speaker 1: they really do the most thorough analysis of Elvis's lyrical parapraxis.

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Speaker 1: But let's start with Old Shep. Listen to Hank Snow

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Speaker 1: performing the lyrics as they were originally written. The boy

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Speaker 1: has just put away his gun, realizing he can't shoot Shep.

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Speaker 8: So I threw down a let old gun and ran

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Speaker 8: right up to his signe ladies, faithful, old head, right online,

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Speaker 8: knee and friends. I stroked the best pound little man

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Speaker 8: ever found. I even cried so I scarcely could see.

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Speaker 1: Now listen to Elvis sing his.

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Speaker 4: Version, I had strong the best friend, not a man.

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Speaker 6: I cry.

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Speaker 7: Sauscuriously good see Hanks no sings I stroked the best

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Speaker 7: pal a man ever found, meaning that the boy considers

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Speaker 7: an act of violence against his best pal, then decides

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Speaker 7: against it and takes instead the path of nurture and sympathy.

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Speaker 1: He recovers his humanity. But Elvis sings, I had struck

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Speaker 1: the best friend a man ever had, which turns the

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Speaker 1: meaning of the song completely upside down. The boy does

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Speaker 1: not recover his humanity. He now holds himself responsible for

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Speaker 1: an act of violence against Shep, an act of violence

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Speaker 1: that in fact he did not commit. Stroke becomes struck,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the song about moral redemption

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Speaker 1: turns into a song about morbid remorse. Now I suppose

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Speaker 1: you can say stroke struck whatever those two words sound

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Speaker 1: the same. It's just a cover, but it's not just

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Speaker 1: a cover. Alvis was obsessed with Old Shep. It's the

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Speaker 1: first song he ever learned on the guitar. He played

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Speaker 1: it incessantly as a child. At age ten, he played

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Speaker 1: it at the Mississippi Alabama Fair, his first public performance.

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Speaker 1: He played it at his high school talent show and won.

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Speaker 1: He played it on dates with girls. He played it

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Speaker 1: well into his career. And why does the song resonate

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Speaker 1: so much with him? It's a song about love, betrayal,

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Speaker 1: and loss, themes that are at the center of Elvis's life.

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Speaker 1: He's a twinless twin. Someone who's twin died in utero,

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Speaker 1: and he's obsessed by that fact. He brings it up

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Speaker 1: again and again. The loss of someone who should have

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Speaker 1: been his closest friend. Alvis's mother, Gladys, is to say

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Speaker 1: the least unusual. She's controlling, intense, he calls her baby.

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Speaker 1: Gladys died when Alvis was just twenty three. When he

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Speaker 1: first saw her casket, he threw himself on top of

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Speaker 1: her body, then stepped back and talked about how beautiful

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Speaker 1: she was while pointing to her dead feet. He called

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Speaker 1: them her little suities. He did this again and again.

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Speaker 1: At the end of the funeral service, he lay on

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Speaker 1: top of her casket, saying, I want to go with you.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to stay here. I can't be without you.

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Speaker 1: And we haven't even gotten to Priscilla, Alvis's wife. He

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Speaker 1: spotted her when she was fourteen and eventually convinced her

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Speaker 1: to move in with him in Memphis.

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Speaker 9: Once Alvis took you to a move Yes he did.

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Speaker 1: This is Priscilla being interviewed by Barbara Walters in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty five.

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Speaker 9: Why why that fascination?

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Speaker 10: I don't know.

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Speaker 9: I don't know what the fascination was. This is not

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Speaker 9: the first time that he had done this. I don't

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Speaker 9: know if it was for the shock value, you know,

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Speaker 9: to see how people would react, or just for his

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Speaker 9: own thrill of it. You wrote, there were times when

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Speaker 9: you and Elvis spent days in the bedroom, freezing bedroom.

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Speaker 9: He liked it be cold, the windows with blackout drapes

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Speaker 9: or no sun light enter it. Day after day. It

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Speaker 9: went in two weeks.

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Speaker 11: Yes, we stayed like that.

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Speaker 9: We had our food.

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Speaker 12: Delivered by the door and.

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Speaker 5: It was cold.

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Speaker 9: I mean, he did like a cold, and it was dark,

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Speaker 9: and it could get real lonely. And that's how he

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Speaker 9: liked it at times, like a cocoon, almost like a womb.

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Speaker 1: I guess you think. Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on

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Speaker 1: a white couch surrounded by pink flowers. Scilla is in

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Speaker 1: a strapless sun dress. She looks amazing. Barbara Walters turns

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Speaker 1: to her and says, Alvis controlled your looks, your clothes,

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Speaker 1: your hair, your makeup. He controlled you totally. Priscilla says, yes,

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Speaker 1: he did.

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Speaker 9: Then six years you lived there before he decided to

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Speaker 9: marry you. In those six years of sleeping with him

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Speaker 9: every night, he never had intercourse with you. You wrote

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Speaker 9: in your book that there were times when you begged

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Speaker 9: him six years so why well again, you know, I

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Speaker 9: can only go back to what his concept was as

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Speaker 9: what he wanted in a woman, and somewhere he along

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Speaker 9: in his past he said that he wanted a virgin.

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Speaker 1: Alvis is complicated, and what does Freud's theory of parapraxis say?

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Speaker 1: The complicated feelings inappropriate, maybe unacceptable feelings are normally suppressed,

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Speaker 1: but every now and again, some little bit of that

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Speaker 1: buried emotion slips out and if you're paying attention and

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Speaker 1: listening closely, that little slip can tell you something. Struck

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Speaker 1: for stroke. But old chap is just the beginning. For Elvis,

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Speaker 1: the real pairapraxis occurs in are You Lonesome Tonight? A

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Speaker 1: song originally written in the nineteen twenties and which Elvis

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Speaker 1: took to the top of the charts just after he

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Speaker 1: came out of the Army.

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Speaker 13: Are You Longed.

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Speaker 1: Wish A Day? Zero six?

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Speaker 6: Take two.

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Speaker 1: Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music Row in Nashville,

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Speaker 1: April fourth, nineteen sixty The recordings from the original session

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Speaker 1: now held in the Sony Music Archive.

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Speaker 14: Yeah, this is there's numerous takes here, so they fall apart,

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Speaker 14: they make a mistake, and what have you?

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Speaker 1: John Jackson and Vic Annissini from Sony Me all listening

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Speaker 1: together at the legendary Battery Studios in Manhattan, where everyone

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Speaker 1: from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen recorded Holy Ground. I

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Speaker 1: started my quest at the very beginning.

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Speaker 7: It is your hot till.

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Speaker 5: Share, I harm.

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Speaker 4: Toll me d.

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Speaker 5: Are You Lonesome?

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Speaker 1: To Amaziah? Is he uh? When he records that? Are

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Speaker 1: the Jordanaires singing along with him? Or they're laying that

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Speaker 1: tracked down spar no livething a. Yeah.

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Speaker 15: He always preferred to have everyone in one room and

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Speaker 15: record live.

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Speaker 6: Oh, even in one room, not in booths or no no,

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Speaker 6: no, no no.

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Speaker 1: He hated booths. Recording the song was not Elvis's idea.

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Speaker 1: It was a favorite of the wife of his manager,

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Speaker 1: Tom Parker. In the studio, Elvis asked the lights be

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Speaker 1: turned off so the room was in darkness. He did

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Speaker 1: five takes. He didn't like any of them.

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Speaker 14: It was four in the morning when he recorded it,

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Speaker 14: so he made everyone get out of the studio go.

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Speaker 1: Away, and then he just you know, did it.

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Speaker 14: And then they this is the second take, which they

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Speaker 14: told him how the background singers, you know, pea popped

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Speaker 14: because he said, just stop the tape, you know, I'm done.

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Speaker 14: They said, just do it once more because you know,

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Speaker 14: we hit a pea pop on there. So the third

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Speaker 14: take ends up being the master.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I see.

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Speaker 14: Then held the label held it back for seven eight

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Speaker 14: months because he didn't.

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Speaker 1: Realize what they had on their hands.

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Speaker 14: Yeah, it was seven months.

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Speaker 16: I think after he recreated they finally released it as

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Speaker 16: a single and didn't go out that he had done

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Speaker 16: eight songs for Elvis's back, and this was just like, yeah,

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Speaker 16: just try this.

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Speaker 1: One, recorded in the wee hours of the morning in

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Speaker 1: darkness as a favor to someone else, a song neither

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Speaker 1: Elvis nor his label particularly liked. It's almost like the

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Speaker 1: song had a curse on it right from the beginning,

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Speaker 1: and from then on Elvis could never quite get it right.

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Speaker 1: I talked about this with Michelle Press at the New

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Speaker 1: York Psychoanalytics Society. Elvis wasn't typically someone who forgot the

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Speaker 1: words to the songs he sang. There's all these examples

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Speaker 1: out of his life of him being able to recite,

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Speaker 1: to sing from memory massive amounts of stuff. I'm worried.

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Speaker 1: I'm interested about that. There's a little slip worried about

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Speaker 1: I said, I'm worried about that. I'm interested in that,

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Speaker 1: and I'm wondering what the what would you make of that?

256
00:17:18,836 --> 00:17:23,356
Speaker 1: As a psychoanalyst. I try to go on, but of

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Speaker 1: course I'm talking to a hardcore Freudian. I meant to

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Speaker 1: say I was interested, but what came out was worried.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm still caught on your slip, obviously thinking

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Speaker 2: what do you make of it? So one thought was

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Speaker 2: whether the slip might be a key to something that

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Speaker 2: you're figuring out and puzzling with him, because you're right now,

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Speaker 2: you're immersed in him.

264
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Speaker 1: Oh I am. I've been singing this song under my

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Speaker 1: breath for months. I can't understand why I've never been

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Speaker 1: an Elvis fan. I don't own a single song of his,

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Speaker 1: or am I am? I drawn to this story because

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Speaker 1: isn't this story that I'm talking to you the great

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Speaker 1: anxiety of anyone in a creative field, that moment when

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Speaker 1: you lose control, right where the the presentation to the

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Speaker 1: audience is unmasked. I want to I want to show you.

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Speaker 1: I take up my laptop, pull up YouTube. There's a

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Speaker 1: mountain of Elvis on YouTube, one of the last performances

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Speaker 1: of his life. It's bananas. I mean, he just it's

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Speaker 1: he's singing a song he's singing thousands of times, and.

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Speaker 10: He just.

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Speaker 1: Completely loses control of it. I can skip it. I

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Speaker 1: wonder if.

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Speaker 13: Two longs of my life.

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Speaker 4: You know, someone said the worlds of stags in each

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Speaker 4: of us play apart they had playing in plus tags,

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Speaker 4: iriginal select every I never missed you, and it came

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Speaker 4: back to it.

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Speaker 1: For got the word seem to change. When I first

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Speaker 1: saw it it as someone in a I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: not Elvis, but I'm someone in a creative field. It

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Speaker 1: terrified me. It's like up on stage doing what he's

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Speaker 1: paid to do, and he he just.

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Speaker 3: Really won during your life, You're gonna go on living

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Speaker 3: without you.

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Speaker 6: Now the stage is bare and I'm sending there without

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Speaker 6: a new hair.

293
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Speaker 15: I don't know.

294
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Speaker 16: If you'll come.

295
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Speaker 9: Back to me.

296
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Speaker 1: Every live performance he's ever given of this that we

297
00:20:00,756 --> 00:20:04,236
Speaker 1: have on tape, he mangles the bridge. He can't do

298
00:20:04,316 --> 00:20:07,196
Speaker 1: it right. It's which he's returning to the song again

299
00:20:07,236 --> 00:20:08,796
Speaker 1: and again and again and again and again and doing

300
00:20:08,836 --> 00:20:14,116
Speaker 1: the same in this particular always a bride so singing party.

301
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Speaker 2: Over how many years did this go on?

302
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Speaker 1: Yours Okay?

303
00:20:20,796 --> 00:20:23,516
Speaker 14: In nineteen eighty to this life and version was rare

304
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Speaker 14: in the UK, and each one the twenty five and

305
00:20:25,356 --> 00:20:26,676
Speaker 14: the British Singles chart.

306
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Speaker 1: At Battery Studios. I made the Sony guys play every

307
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Speaker 1: version they had. They even have names, Laughing Elvis, Crazy Elvis,

308
00:20:36,756 --> 00:20:38,916
Speaker 1: each one stranger than the one before.

309
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Speaker 6: The World's a stagies in East must play a part.

310
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Speaker 1: There's sweat and tears streaming down his face, and I

311
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Speaker 1: had no call for Dodger.

312
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Speaker 3: It goes on like this, on and on.

313
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Speaker 4: Baby shut.

314
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Speaker 7: Again.

315
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Speaker 10: Tell me? Are you.

316
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Speaker 17: That's it?

317
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Speaker 5: Man?

318
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Speaker 13: Don't do you?

319
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Speaker 1: Don't never hurry and we'll I'll do you O s.

320
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Speaker 1: Have you ever played a song before?

321
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Speaker 10: No?

322
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Speaker 12: I never put it before.

323
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Speaker 1: And it's funny. I played a bunch of.

324
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Speaker 6: Check I put a bunch of his stuff.

325
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Speaker 12: You might flip in the standby switched.

326
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Speaker 7: On the back.

327
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Speaker 1: I'm with Jack White at his studio in Nashville Third

328
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Speaker 1: Man Records. Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, one

329
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Speaker 1: of the great rock and rollers of his generation and

330
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Speaker 1: a huge Elvis fan. He's a shrine to Elvis in

331
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Speaker 1: his hallway, actual shrine. All that's missing is flowers. We

332
00:22:27,316 --> 00:22:29,916
Speaker 1: met in his private office, lots of black and yellow

333
00:22:29,996 --> 00:22:32,596
Speaker 1: and leather and taxidermy. He sat on the couch with

334
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Speaker 1: a guitar. Do you play? Do you play Elvis songs?

335
00:22:37,916 --> 00:22:38,436
Speaker 1: A concert?

336
00:22:39,396 --> 00:22:39,916
Speaker 13: Sometimes?

337
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Speaker 10: I do love like that.

338
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Speaker 1: I want you to love me, love me and just.

339
00:23:00,676 --> 00:23:05,156
Speaker 6: Dream and just save.

340
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Speaker 1: I was gonna say, don't stop, I'm enjoying it. Anything

341
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Speaker 1: any other ones you do?

342
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Speaker 12: Wait?

343
00:23:15,516 --> 00:23:18,676
Speaker 1: Anyway? Why do you why that one? What's it about that? Song.

344
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Speaker 15: I had heard that early from a band called the

345
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Speaker 15: Flat to a Jets that I really liked, and I

346
00:23:23,316 --> 00:23:25,996
Speaker 15: didn't know it was Elvis. And then when i'd heard

347
00:23:26,036 --> 00:23:28,396
Speaker 15: the Elvis version, I had connected the two, like, oh no, really,

348
00:23:28,596 --> 00:23:30,796
Speaker 15: and I started doing it when I put in coffee houses.

349
00:23:30,836 --> 00:23:33,636
Speaker 15: I started playing that when I was like sixteen, Yeah,

350
00:23:34,996 --> 00:23:36,276
Speaker 15: it goes back, which is funny.

351
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Speaker 6: I eventually heard a story of Robert Plant.

352
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Speaker 15: Telling Elvis he loved that song when led Zeppyn met Elvis,

353
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Speaker 15: and then when they walked out out of the hallway

354
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Speaker 15: that Elvis poked his head out in the hallway and

355
00:23:49,476 --> 00:23:52,836
Speaker 15: sang that song to Robert Plan. They sang it back

356
00:23:52,876 --> 00:23:56,436
Speaker 15: to each other, and you were crying and must have

357
00:23:56,476 --> 00:23:57,516
Speaker 15: been an amazing moment.

358
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Speaker 1: Jack White owns the original acetate pressing of Elvis's first

359
00:24:02,196 --> 00:24:06,756
Speaker 1: recording from nineteen fifty three My Happiness. After we talked,

360
00:24:06,876 --> 00:24:08,796
Speaker 1: White took me into his vault to show it to me.

361
00:24:09,316 --> 00:24:11,996
Speaker 1: It's priceless. He asked me if I weren't to hold it.

362
00:24:12,556 --> 00:24:16,236
Speaker 1: I was too terrified to say yes. Jack White seemed

363
00:24:16,276 --> 00:24:18,676
Speaker 1: like the right person to see to try and understand

364
00:24:18,796 --> 00:24:21,076
Speaker 1: Elvis's problem. You are you lonesome? Tonight.

365
00:24:21,796 --> 00:24:23,076
Speaker 6: All right, let me see, we're gonna take a crack.

366
00:24:23,116 --> 00:24:25,156
Speaker 6: It might might have to give a kap worls.

367
00:24:25,196 --> 00:24:39,916
Speaker 1: What are your lone song? Tonight?

368
00:24:41,716 --> 00:24:42,676
Speaker 9: Do you miss me.

369
00:24:44,196 --> 00:24:44,716
Speaker 6: Tonight?

370
00:24:46,436 --> 00:24:50,276
Speaker 1: Are you sorry? We drifted.

371
00:24:51,276 --> 00:24:51,796
Speaker 7: A paw?

372
00:24:55,276 --> 00:25:01,476
Speaker 1: Does your memoir strain through a bride song?

373
00:25:02,436 --> 00:25:02,676
Speaker 12: Day?

374
00:25:04,636 --> 00:25:09,556
Speaker 1: When I kissed you and called you sweet?

375
00:25:13,356 --> 00:25:18,876
Speaker 6: Do the chair in your partner seamanity?

376
00:25:20,516 --> 00:25:21,276
Speaker 9: And then.

377
00:25:22,716 --> 00:25:29,276
Speaker 18: Do you gaze as the door snell and pitcher me?

378
00:25:29,676 --> 00:25:37,956
Speaker 18: Then is your heart fill with fain? Shall I come back?

379
00:25:38,956 --> 00:25:45,836
Speaker 6: Love you till the deed? Are your own song? Son?

380
00:25:49,676 --> 00:25:52,556
Speaker 1: That's the first half of the song. The song version

381
00:25:52,756 --> 00:25:56,076
Speaker 1: all questions A man is wondering whether his lover misses him.

382
00:25:56,916 --> 00:26:00,236
Speaker 1: Then comes the spoken bridge, in which the emotional tables

383
00:26:00,236 --> 00:26:04,356
Speaker 1: are turned and the man leaves himself bare. Are you

384
00:26:04,436 --> 00:26:07,356
Speaker 1: lonesome Tonight? Has been recorded countless times over the years.

385
00:26:08,076 --> 00:26:10,756
Speaker 1: A lot of performers leave out the bridge because it's

386
00:26:10,836 --> 00:26:15,676
Speaker 1: corny and way too long and hard. Elvis kept it in,

387
00:26:16,756 --> 00:26:17,716
Speaker 1: so does Jack White.

388
00:26:19,956 --> 00:26:25,396
Speaker 19: I wonder if you're lonesome tonight? You know someone said

389
00:26:25,436 --> 00:26:28,836
Speaker 19: that the world's a stage and each must play a part.

390
00:26:29,636 --> 00:26:30,756
Speaker 19: I fate had me playing in.

391
00:26:30,836 --> 00:26:33,196
Speaker 1: Love with you as my sweetheart.

392
00:26:34,076 --> 00:26:35,316
Speaker 15: That one was where we met.

393
00:26:36,676 --> 00:26:39,716
Speaker 1: I loved you at first glance. You read your line so.

394
00:26:39,796 --> 00:26:43,276
Speaker 15: Cleverly and never missed a cue. Thing came that too.

395
00:26:44,596 --> 00:26:45,596
Speaker 1: You seem to change.

396
00:26:45,676 --> 00:26:48,796
Speaker 6: You acted strange, and why I've never known.

397
00:26:53,716 --> 00:26:53,996
Speaker 1: Honey.

398
00:26:54,116 --> 00:26:55,556
Speaker 4: You lied when you said.

399
00:26:55,356 --> 00:26:59,036
Speaker 6: You loved me, and I had no cause to doubt you.

400
00:27:02,036 --> 00:27:04,316
Speaker 6: But I'd rather go on hearing your lies.

401
00:27:05,916 --> 00:27:11,796
Speaker 19: To go on living without you. Now the stage is bare,

402
00:27:13,436 --> 00:27:18,196
Speaker 19: and I was standing there with emptiness all around. And

403
00:27:18,276 --> 00:27:22,276
Speaker 19: if you won't come back to me, and then.

404
00:27:22,236 --> 00:27:31,556
Speaker 17: You bring the curtain down, is your heart feel? Shall

405
00:27:31,756 --> 00:27:36,116
Speaker 17: not come back again to me?

406
00:27:39,116 --> 00:27:41,756
Speaker 2: Song to nice?

407
00:27:44,956 --> 00:27:47,996
Speaker 7: Whoa wait?

408
00:27:48,476 --> 00:27:49,036
Speaker 10: You you?

409
00:27:49,476 --> 00:27:50,236
Speaker 1: You enjoyed that.

410
00:27:52,076 --> 00:27:52,396
Speaker 17: I did?

411
00:27:52,476 --> 00:27:55,396
Speaker 15: It gets I gets uh, there's some nice parts where

412
00:27:55,396 --> 00:28:00,476
Speaker 15: it gets the you can see uh playing that live now?

413
00:28:00,636 --> 00:28:02,476
Speaker 1: I just did that like well, we just did that.

414
00:28:02,796 --> 00:28:06,956
Speaker 15: I played it once yesterday reading this, but now playing

415
00:28:07,036 --> 00:28:08,836
Speaker 15: like that, I could see wild live You could really

416
00:28:08,916 --> 00:28:11,396
Speaker 15: that really could get to be a really emotional song.

417
00:28:12,756 --> 00:28:14,716
Speaker 6: So I didn't really think about it until just then.

418
00:28:16,076 --> 00:28:17,516
Speaker 1: What led you to think that just now?

419
00:28:17,676 --> 00:28:20,236
Speaker 6: Because it feels like, well, it's in a mine.

420
00:28:20,276 --> 00:28:22,236
Speaker 15: It's a lot of minor chords, so that that that's

421
00:28:22,516 --> 00:28:25,036
Speaker 15: already gets you in that melancholy vibe, but it has

422
00:28:25,196 --> 00:28:30,836
Speaker 15: it has that. What just occurred to me now is

423
00:28:30,916 --> 00:28:33,196
Speaker 15: he doesn't he doesn't He doesn't really care that if

424
00:28:33,276 --> 00:28:37,636
Speaker 15: she's lonesome, he's lonesome, that the singer is lonesome. And

425
00:28:37,756 --> 00:28:40,756
Speaker 15: it's a it's a maguffin to pretend like I'm worried

426
00:28:40,756 --> 00:28:43,236
Speaker 15: about you? Are you lonesome tonight?

427
00:28:43,316 --> 00:28:43,476
Speaker 12: You know?

428
00:28:44,156 --> 00:28:46,716
Speaker 15: But it's really he's the singer is worried about himself.

429
00:28:47,796 --> 00:28:50,996
Speaker 15: So that could be you know, you take that kind

430
00:28:51,036 --> 00:28:55,476
Speaker 15: of emotional song and you put years and years on stage,

431
00:28:55,556 --> 00:28:57,796
Speaker 15: and then you put drugs in the mix, and then

432
00:28:58,316 --> 00:29:00,436
Speaker 15: in your own state of mind at the time, it

433
00:29:00,516 --> 00:29:03,356
Speaker 15: could be a really you could be onto something there.

434
00:29:03,396 --> 00:29:06,036
Speaker 15: It could be a real diversion that it's too powerful

435
00:29:06,076 --> 00:29:07,076
Speaker 15: to sing.

436
00:29:07,236 --> 00:29:12,156
Speaker 1: What's fascinating is that to the some parts, the singer

437
00:29:12,236 --> 00:29:14,876
Speaker 1: is in control and he's worried about her right the

438
00:29:14,996 --> 00:29:18,436
Speaker 1: spoken parts, the singer is vulnerable and he's confessing his

439
00:29:18,556 --> 00:29:22,196
Speaker 1: own and it's so screwed up. It's like, I know

440
00:29:22,276 --> 00:29:24,316
Speaker 1: you lied to me, and I wish you hadn't, right,

441
00:29:24,716 --> 00:29:26,316
Speaker 1: which I didn't know that you lied to me because

442
00:29:26,316 --> 00:29:29,076
Speaker 1: I'd rather be in the state of being deceived than

443
00:29:29,156 --> 00:29:34,836
Speaker 1: know the truth, which is like seventeen convolutions of neuroticism.

444
00:29:35,156 --> 00:29:39,476
Speaker 6: Right, he's still blaming her most of the lines, still

445
00:29:39,556 --> 00:29:40,316
Speaker 6: pointing the finger.

446
00:29:41,396 --> 00:29:44,196
Speaker 1: White says, you can't run from that kind of emotion,

447
00:29:44,716 --> 00:29:47,556
Speaker 1: not if you're singing the song properly. And so when

448
00:29:47,636 --> 00:29:51,196
Speaker 1: he writes songs, he tries to establish some distance between

449
00:29:51,276 --> 00:29:53,436
Speaker 1: himself and the feelings he's singing about.

450
00:29:54,156 --> 00:29:57,916
Speaker 11: I try to push it into a character's standpoint rather

451
00:29:58,036 --> 00:30:04,076
Speaker 11: than it being a self confession confessional for me, because

452
00:30:04,116 --> 00:30:06,596
Speaker 11: I think that would be really hard to consistently keep

453
00:30:06,716 --> 00:30:09,236
Speaker 11: living that moment over and over and over again. I've

454
00:30:09,236 --> 00:30:13,196
Speaker 11: definitely seen older artists ignoring certain parts of their certain

455
00:30:13,276 --> 00:30:15,356
Speaker 11: songs in their career because it's probably too close to

456
00:30:15,516 --> 00:30:17,116
Speaker 11: home about something or other.

457
00:30:18,236 --> 00:30:22,236
Speaker 1: But you can't avoid a song's emotional effects all the time,

458
00:30:22,916 --> 00:30:25,116
Speaker 1: and especially not when you have to read a soliloquy

459
00:30:25,156 --> 00:30:27,196
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, which is what the are

460
00:30:27,236 --> 00:30:31,316
Speaker 1: you Lonesome bridge is a speech parachuted into the heart

461
00:30:31,356 --> 00:30:31,796
Speaker 1: of the song.

462
00:30:32,796 --> 00:30:36,036
Speaker 15: I had a little flub moment at one point trying

463
00:30:36,076 --> 00:30:38,596
Speaker 15: to figure out, well, wait a minute, it's a waltz.

464
00:30:39,276 --> 00:30:46,476
Speaker 6: You know you have that so if I'm like, I

465
00:30:46,596 --> 00:30:52,316
Speaker 6: wonder if two three so one two the one.

466
00:30:52,436 --> 00:30:56,956
Speaker 15: Two there, so your brain kind of wants to go.

467
00:30:57,476 --> 00:31:02,956
Speaker 15: I wonder if you're lonesome tonight, that's what your brain

468
00:31:03,036 --> 00:31:06,556
Speaker 15: wants to do. You know, someone said that the world's

469
00:31:06,596 --> 00:31:08,356
Speaker 15: a stage and we must.

470
00:31:08,276 --> 00:31:11,076
Speaker 1: Each play a part. Then it starts to get it

471
00:31:11,116 --> 00:31:11,716
Speaker 1: breaks down.

472
00:31:11,876 --> 00:31:13,156
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it would, I mean I would.

473
00:31:13,196 --> 00:31:15,036
Speaker 15: I can definitely say that this would be a lot

474
00:31:15,076 --> 00:31:17,916
Speaker 15: easier if someone else was playing guitar and I could

475
00:31:17,956 --> 00:31:20,876
Speaker 15: just recite, uh that part?

476
00:31:20,916 --> 00:31:23,716
Speaker 1: Which should I recite it while you played the guitar? Yeah,

477
00:31:23,796 --> 00:31:27,116
Speaker 1: let's see do that. Yeah, I'm not going to torture

478
00:31:27,156 --> 00:31:30,636
Speaker 1: you with my rendition of the spoken bridge. Well maybe later.

479
00:31:31,516 --> 00:31:34,436
Speaker 1: I'm just saying until I die, I can say I

480
00:31:34,596 --> 00:31:39,036
Speaker 1: played with Jack White and then, because how many opportunities

481
00:31:39,076 --> 00:31:41,716
Speaker 1: am I going to get like this? I asked Jack

482
00:31:41,756 --> 00:31:45,076
Speaker 1: White to help me edit the soliloquy. If one were

483
00:31:45,156 --> 00:31:50,236
Speaker 1: to rewrite it, I'm thinking you that you, uh, you

484
00:31:50,356 --> 00:31:54,076
Speaker 1: lose the first three lines. Fate had me playing in

485
00:31:54,196 --> 00:31:59,116
Speaker 1: love you as my sweetheart, or even Act one was

486
00:31:59,156 --> 00:32:01,316
Speaker 1: when we met? Why don't why don't they just start

487
00:32:01,356 --> 00:32:01,836
Speaker 1: with act one?

488
00:32:01,956 --> 00:32:02,156
Speaker 10: Do I?

489
00:32:06,156 --> 00:32:09,316
Speaker 6: Act one was where I'm met. I loved you at

490
00:32:09,356 --> 00:32:15,076
Speaker 6: the first glance. He read your lines so carefully, never

491
00:32:15,156 --> 00:32:15,556
Speaker 6: missed a Q.

492
00:32:17,356 --> 00:32:17,996
Speaker 15: What did I do there?

493
00:32:18,156 --> 00:32:20,516
Speaker 1: You say carefully instead of cleverly, clever beautiful?

494
00:32:22,516 --> 00:32:27,156
Speaker 6: Then came back too, You seem to change, You acted strange.

495
00:32:28,116 --> 00:32:32,196
Speaker 1: What did Jack White do there? The actual lyric is

496
00:32:32,956 --> 00:32:37,276
Speaker 1: you read your lines so cleverly. He said, you read

497
00:32:37,356 --> 00:32:42,916
Speaker 1: your line so carefully, carefully for cleverly, a man singing

498
00:32:42,956 --> 00:32:45,876
Speaker 1: one of the songs of his musical idol comes to

499
00:32:45,996 --> 00:32:50,036
Speaker 1: the emotionally complex center and what do we hear a

500
00:32:50,116 --> 00:32:54,436
Speaker 1: moment of vulnerability? Can he be as clever as Elvis?

501
00:32:55,036 --> 00:32:57,556
Speaker 1: He's not sure, he must be careful.

502
00:32:58,356 --> 00:33:02,476
Speaker 3: Parapraxis Sometimes you know I love I love him so much,

503
00:33:02,556 --> 00:33:05,196
Speaker 3: and that you know I'm afraid to learn more about

504
00:33:05,276 --> 00:33:08,516
Speaker 3: certain things, like you know it's you're so close to it,

505
00:33:08,876 --> 00:33:11,116
Speaker 3: and you've experienced certain things about.

506
00:33:12,956 --> 00:33:15,756
Speaker 15: You know nothing in comparison to what he went through.

507
00:33:15,796 --> 00:33:17,596
Speaker 15: But you're in the same where we do the same

508
00:33:17,756 --> 00:33:20,756
Speaker 15: kind of thing. We perform, and we go on stages

509
00:33:20,796 --> 00:33:23,316
Speaker 15: and we make records and all this stuff from a

510
00:33:23,356 --> 00:33:26,596
Speaker 15: different time period. But you notice these tiny little moments

511
00:33:26,636 --> 00:33:29,316
Speaker 15: that are when you see certain you're like, Oh, I know.

512
00:33:29,396 --> 00:33:30,396
Speaker 1: Exactly what that's about.

513
00:33:30,396 --> 00:33:31,716
Speaker 15: I know exactly what that feels like.

514
00:33:37,476 --> 00:33:41,076
Speaker 1: There are ten known live recordings of Elvis performing Are

515
00:33:41,116 --> 00:33:44,356
Speaker 1: You Lonesome Tonight, starting in nineteen sixty one in a

516
00:33:44,436 --> 00:33:47,716
Speaker 1: concert at Block Arena in Honolulu, up to the end

517
00:33:47,796 --> 00:33:51,956
Speaker 1: of Elvis's life in nineteen seventy seven. Alan Elms and

518
00:33:52,076 --> 00:33:55,836
Speaker 1: Bruce Heller analyze them all in their essay Twelve Ways

519
00:33:55,916 --> 00:33:59,596
Speaker 1: to Say Lonesome, Assessing error and control in the music

520
00:33:59,636 --> 00:34:06,396
Speaker 1: of Elvis Presley. Elms and Heller find that Elvis performs

521
00:34:06,476 --> 00:34:09,636
Speaker 1: the sung portion of Are You Lonesome Tonight more or

522
00:34:09,716 --> 00:34:12,716
Speaker 1: less flawlessly because the song portion is the part of

523
00:34:12,756 --> 00:34:15,996
Speaker 1: the song where the singer is in control, but in

524
00:34:16,116 --> 00:34:19,276
Speaker 1: the spoken bridge, the narrator is suddenly the one who's

525
00:34:19,316 --> 00:34:23,116
Speaker 1: been deceived and rejected, and that's the part Elvis can't

526
00:34:23,156 --> 00:34:27,916
Speaker 1: get right. Elms and Heller count a total of one

527
00:34:28,036 --> 00:34:31,636
Speaker 1: hundred and nine errors in those ten live performances of

528
00:34:31,676 --> 00:34:36,196
Speaker 1: the spoken Bridge, twenty nine of which involved just four

529
00:34:36,316 --> 00:34:40,716
Speaker 1: lines I loved you at first glance, where he confesses

530
00:34:40,796 --> 00:34:44,436
Speaker 1: the depths of his feelings. You seem to change, You

531
00:34:44,596 --> 00:34:49,396
Speaker 1: acted strange, where he testifies to his betrayal and rejection

532
00:34:50,396 --> 00:34:54,556
Speaker 1: and why I've never known where he expresses his feelings

533
00:34:54,596 --> 00:35:01,036
Speaker 1: of anger and victimization, and with emptiness all around where

534
00:35:01,076 --> 00:35:05,756
Speaker 1: he admits to his loneliness. The most problematic renditions of

535
00:35:05,836 --> 00:35:08,596
Speaker 1: the Bridge are the later ones, which come after the

536
00:35:08,596 --> 00:35:13,556
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen seventy two. What happens in the summer

537
00:35:13,596 --> 00:35:14,636
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy two?

538
00:35:15,636 --> 00:35:17,436
Speaker 9: And one day you went in and said, I'm leaving.

539
00:35:20,116 --> 00:35:22,956
Speaker 9: There was another man in your life. He was your

540
00:35:23,036 --> 00:35:26,396
Speaker 9: karate teacher, right, Mike Stone. And you went off then

541
00:35:26,476 --> 00:35:27,156
Speaker 9: and lived with him.

542
00:35:28,556 --> 00:35:32,996
Speaker 1: Priscilla Presley back on the couch with Barbara Walters, America's

543
00:35:33,116 --> 00:35:34,236
Speaker 1: prime time Freudian.

544
00:35:35,076 --> 00:35:37,236
Speaker 9: It was said that Elvis tried to kill him. I

545
00:35:37,356 --> 00:35:39,156
Speaker 9: wanted him killed, right? Do you believe that?

546
00:35:39,956 --> 00:35:42,916
Speaker 10: I think at that time, yes, he did. He wanted

547
00:35:42,956 --> 00:35:43,476
Speaker 10: that to happen.

548
00:35:46,596 --> 00:35:49,756
Speaker 5: Do the cheers in your father.

549
00:35:51,116 --> 00:35:51,996
Speaker 4: Seeing empty?

550
00:35:52,996 --> 00:35:55,796
Speaker 8: And do you gay?

551
00:35:56,876 --> 00:35:58,196
Speaker 10: Is that your ball head?

552
00:35:59,476 --> 00:36:07,596
Speaker 7: And wish you had hair filled with pain? She'll I

553
00:36:07,876 --> 00:36:14,476
Speaker 7: come back? Tell me, are you lossome?

554
00:36:16,916 --> 00:36:17,156
Speaker 10: Lord?

555
00:36:17,316 --> 00:36:17,596
Speaker 9: Lord?

556
00:36:21,196 --> 00:36:21,756
Speaker 3: I want.

557
00:36:24,716 --> 00:36:29,636
Speaker 1: A man who fears betrayal and abandonment is portrayed and abandoned.

558
00:36:33,516 --> 00:36:34,956
Speaker 6: And I had no cause to doctor.

559
00:36:41,796 --> 00:36:44,036
Speaker 1: It's too much. He's a wreck.

560
00:36:48,436 --> 00:36:52,676
Speaker 7: Shot again, tell me.

561
00:36:54,316 --> 00:36:55,516
Speaker 5: Why are you Lossome?

562
00:37:06,676 --> 00:37:09,436
Speaker 1: After I left Jack White, I went to see Bobby

563
00:37:09,476 --> 00:37:12,636
Speaker 1: Braddock just down the street at the Sony Studios on

564
00:37:12,796 --> 00:37:19,676
Speaker 1: Nashville's Music Row. This you may remember Bobby Braddock from

565
00:37:19,756 --> 00:37:24,116
Speaker 1: season two of Revisionist History. He's the legendary songwriter I

566
00:37:24,276 --> 00:37:27,676
Speaker 1: called the King of Tears. Braddock wanted to introduce me

567
00:37:27,836 --> 00:37:30,716
Speaker 1: to a good friend of his, a singer songwriter named

568
00:37:30,796 --> 00:37:31,516
Speaker 1: Casey Bowles.

569
00:37:32,876 --> 00:37:34,276
Speaker 12: That's the church across the alto.

570
00:37:34,836 --> 00:37:38,556
Speaker 1: Thirty something long red hair, the kind of person who

571
00:37:38,636 --> 00:37:41,636
Speaker 1: if you touch you expect a little jolt of static.

572
00:37:43,116 --> 00:37:46,516
Speaker 13: Don't work, Oh you won't sing that song that.

573
00:37:47,116 --> 00:37:49,396
Speaker 1: We were in the biggest of the Sony recording studios,

574
00:37:49,436 --> 00:37:52,276
Speaker 1: on the main floor, in a corner where the piano was.

575
00:37:54,876 --> 00:37:58,476
Speaker 1: Casey sang are you Lonesome Tonight? With Bobby on the piano.

576
00:38:05,956 --> 00:38:07,116
Speaker 6: Do you miss me.

577
00:38:11,316 --> 00:38:11,756
Speaker 7: Sobby?

578
00:38:12,796 --> 00:38:19,676
Speaker 1: We drifted, Then we sat and they talked about Nashville.

579
00:38:20,236 --> 00:38:22,276
Speaker 1: They talked about how they both grew up in the

580
00:38:22,356 --> 00:38:26,036
Speaker 1: Church of Christ, the most strict of Southern fundamentalist denominations.

581
00:38:26,996 --> 00:38:28,076
Speaker 1: And they talked about Elvis.

582
00:38:29,036 --> 00:38:30,276
Speaker 12: My dad thought he was Elvis.

583
00:38:30,516 --> 00:38:34,036
Speaker 10: I think, yeah, he really he was a Church of

584
00:38:34,076 --> 00:38:37,156
Speaker 10: Christ song leader and really wanted to be a Jordanaire badly,

585
00:38:37,876 --> 00:38:40,916
Speaker 10: and so Ray Walker was one of the Jordanaires, and

586
00:38:40,996 --> 00:38:43,596
Speaker 10: he tried to emulate him by way of dress and hairstyle.

587
00:38:44,196 --> 00:38:47,876
Speaker 12: And so I grew up either hearing him.

588
00:38:47,836 --> 00:38:50,956
Speaker 10: Say hello, Darlan, nice to see you, or doing this

589
00:38:51,516 --> 00:38:55,196
Speaker 10: sort of you know, is it vaudeville style or just

590
00:38:55,516 --> 00:38:59,636
Speaker 10: just sort of a over the top modeling style.

591
00:38:59,676 --> 00:39:01,556
Speaker 12: I guess is modeling the way you'd say it modeling.

592
00:39:02,276 --> 00:39:05,996
Speaker 1: Then Bobby Braddock started talking about recitations the spoken part

593
00:39:06,116 --> 00:39:08,836
Speaker 1: in many older country songs, and he made the same

594
00:39:08,876 --> 00:39:11,996
Speaker 1: play that Jack White did that they're much easier if

595
00:39:11,996 --> 00:39:14,796
Speaker 1: they're set to music, if you could just as easily

596
00:39:14,916 --> 00:39:17,796
Speaker 1: sing them, like on one of Braddock's most famous songs,

597
00:39:18,236 --> 00:39:19,836
Speaker 1: he Stopped Loving Her Today.

598
00:39:20,436 --> 00:39:33,876
Speaker 13: The vestation she came to see him. We all wonder, Yeah,

599
00:39:33,996 --> 00:39:36,596
Speaker 13: you could sing that she came to see him one

600
00:39:36,716 --> 00:39:37,356
Speaker 13: last time.

601
00:39:40,276 --> 00:39:42,956
Speaker 1: Oh, we all wonder if she would.

602
00:39:43,636 --> 00:39:47,036
Speaker 13: And that works either way. But this is just like, uh,

603
00:39:47,556 --> 00:39:49,716
Speaker 13: we got this song, let's get a recitation, throw it

604
00:39:49,796 --> 00:39:52,916
Speaker 13: in there, and and they Elvis made it work. And

605
00:39:52,996 --> 00:39:57,116
Speaker 13: I'm thinking, just instinctively, just because he was, Uh, he

606
00:39:57,316 --> 00:39:58,036
Speaker 13: was just so good.

607
00:39:58,956 --> 00:40:02,876
Speaker 1: Recitations are unusual these days. Braddock hasn't written one since

608
00:40:02,916 --> 00:40:05,196
Speaker 1: something he did for Toby Keith in the nineteen nineties.

609
00:40:05,916 --> 00:40:10,396
Speaker 13: Last successful recitation song. I was actually it was, well,

610
00:40:10,516 --> 00:40:12,276
Speaker 13: actually it was it was. It was a hip hop thing.

611
00:40:12,316 --> 00:40:15,676
Speaker 13: I want to talk about me. But that was talking, talking, talking,

612
00:40:16,156 --> 00:40:16,396
Speaker 13: That's what.

613
00:40:16,396 --> 00:40:16,996
Speaker 12: I'm thinking about.

614
00:40:17,876 --> 00:40:19,916
Speaker 1: You know, wait, can you can?

615
00:40:19,956 --> 00:40:19,996
Speaker 7: You?

616
00:40:20,156 --> 00:40:21,836
Speaker 1: Can you pay a little slice of that? You remember?

617
00:40:22,716 --> 00:40:27,756
Speaker 13: I never do that? Why do that always? I always

618
00:40:27,836 --> 00:40:29,836
Speaker 13: do it with with with a karaoke thing where I

619
00:40:29,876 --> 00:40:34,236
Speaker 13: get up there and play the thing I want to

620
00:40:34,236 --> 00:40:36,316
Speaker 13: talk about me? We want to talk about I want

621
00:40:36,316 --> 00:40:39,316
Speaker 13: to talk about number one. You talk about your work,

622
00:40:39,396 --> 00:40:41,076
Speaker 13: how your boss is a jerk. You talk about your

623
00:40:41,116 --> 00:40:43,236
Speaker 13: church in your head and your church, talk about the

624
00:40:43,276 --> 00:40:45,196
Speaker 13: trouble you've been having with your mother and your daddy,

625
00:40:45,476 --> 00:40:47,116
Speaker 13: with your brother and your daddy and your mother and

626
00:40:47,196 --> 00:40:53,916
Speaker 13: your crazy ex lover, you know, and then and then

627
00:40:53,996 --> 00:40:57,076
Speaker 13: the minstrel minstrel period of line, which everybody said, you

628
00:40:57,156 --> 00:40:59,436
Speaker 13: can't put that in a song, nobody will ever cut it,

629
00:40:59,516 --> 00:41:02,036
Speaker 13: you know, And it was one of the biggest songs

630
00:41:02,076 --> 00:41:06,476
Speaker 13: ever had about your medical charts and when you start

631
00:41:08,036 --> 00:41:13,076
Speaker 13: take that out nobody recording. Toby Keith did, here's probably

632
00:41:13,156 --> 00:41:14,236
Speaker 13: one one who would have though.

633
00:41:15,996 --> 00:41:19,356
Speaker 1: Then I showed them the prize. I brought it my bag,

634
00:41:20,156 --> 00:41:23,956
Speaker 1: my copy of the Handbook of Psycho Biography containing the

635
00:41:24,076 --> 00:41:27,716
Speaker 1: Heller and Elms essay. Hold on, I have my book here.

636
00:41:28,316 --> 00:41:33,356
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that's fashion. To a pair of Elvis fanatics,

637
00:41:33,556 --> 00:41:36,076
Speaker 1: it was like I'd unearthed the Dead Sea scrolls.

638
00:41:36,636 --> 00:41:37,236
Speaker 13: What's the book?

639
00:41:38,156 --> 00:41:41,476
Speaker 1: A book called Handbook of psycho Biography, and it has

640
00:41:41,516 --> 00:41:45,836
Speaker 1: an essay on this song Wow cycle biography and so yeah,

641
00:41:45,916 --> 00:41:48,716
Speaker 1: so here's so this guy has gone through. It made

642
00:41:48,716 --> 00:41:53,836
Speaker 1: a chart all of the lyrical mistakes that Elvis made

643
00:41:53,876 --> 00:42:00,076
Speaker 1: in every known live recording of These were two songwriters,

644
00:42:00,356 --> 00:42:03,196
Speaker 1: and I felt they immediately saw themselves in that chart.

645
00:42:03,916 --> 00:42:07,076
Speaker 1: Do you find yourself making the kind of error, sometimes

646
00:42:07,156 --> 00:42:10,076
Speaker 1: even subtle ones, that you been talking about?

647
00:42:10,156 --> 00:42:10,876
Speaker 12: That's so interesting.

648
00:42:11,116 --> 00:42:13,916
Speaker 10: I wrote a song about my mother called Somebody Something,

649
00:42:14,276 --> 00:42:18,476
Speaker 10: and my mother is adorable, And whenever you heard about

650
00:42:18,836 --> 00:42:21,276
Speaker 10: things going wrong or like some tumultu a story, it

651
00:42:21,436 --> 00:42:23,116
Speaker 10: was my dad. And so I finally was like, you

652
00:42:23,156 --> 00:42:24,956
Speaker 10: know what, wantn't we the only person in the family

653
00:42:25,076 --> 00:42:27,236
Speaker 10: that there's nothing I have it written about. So it's

654
00:42:27,276 --> 00:42:29,116
Speaker 10: trying to dig dirt on her and there was nothing,

655
00:42:29,676 --> 00:42:32,116
Speaker 10: And so I ended up writing this song about her

656
00:42:32,316 --> 00:42:35,636
Speaker 10: called Somebody Something, and I cry every time I do it.

657
00:42:36,116 --> 00:42:39,596
Speaker 10: And there is a line that says, you know, she's

658
00:42:39,636 --> 00:42:42,516
Speaker 10: always been somebody something. She's lived every life but her own,

659
00:42:45,076 --> 00:42:46,796
Speaker 10: and it's gone. I can't remember it right now.

660
00:42:47,996 --> 00:42:48,836
Speaker 1: I don't know that feeling.

661
00:42:49,076 --> 00:42:53,036
Speaker 12: I can't remember it. She's always been somebody something. It's

662
00:42:53,076 --> 00:42:54,676
Speaker 12: been everything but alone.

663
00:42:55,356 --> 00:42:58,716
Speaker 10: A daughter, a mother, a lot, a daughter, a lover,

664
00:42:59,236 --> 00:43:02,636
Speaker 10: a wife, and a mother. She's lived every life but

665
00:43:02,796 --> 00:43:07,676
Speaker 10: her own. Yeah, she's always been somebody's something. And there's

666
00:43:07,676 --> 00:43:09,796
Speaker 10: a line that says, you know, she she wonders what

667
00:43:09,996 --> 00:43:14,076
Speaker 10: it might be like to be somebody else, and she wonders.

668
00:43:15,876 --> 00:43:17,276
Speaker 12: What it feels like to be free.

669
00:43:18,716 --> 00:43:21,676
Speaker 10: But she's always imagined being nobody's nothing, and that's something

670
00:43:21,756 --> 00:43:22,596
Speaker 10: she never want to be.

671
00:43:23,396 --> 00:43:26,676
Speaker 12: But that line usually is just gone.

672
00:43:26,876 --> 00:43:29,156
Speaker 10: And a lot of times I'll go hold on and

673
00:43:29,436 --> 00:43:31,556
Speaker 10: divert and tell a funny story really quickly.

674
00:43:33,436 --> 00:43:38,196
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the specific line that's gone? Is which one?

675
00:43:38,836 --> 00:43:38,956
Speaker 10: Uh?

676
00:43:39,556 --> 00:43:42,956
Speaker 12: What's go on again? She's always been somebody's Cynthia's been

677
00:43:42,996 --> 00:43:46,076
Speaker 12: everything but alone, daughter, a lover, a daughter, a lover,

678
00:43:46,236 --> 00:43:53,196
Speaker 12: a wife, and a mother. She's been everything but alone. Yeah, yeah,

679
00:43:54,556 --> 00:43:55,476
Speaker 12: why is it that line?

680
00:43:55,516 --> 00:44:02,076
Speaker 10: I don't know. I think that I don't know. I

681
00:44:02,116 --> 00:44:05,756
Speaker 10: think when you even she's so when you see somebody

682
00:44:05,836 --> 00:44:08,756
Speaker 10: give so much of themselves and that's truly the only

683
00:44:08,796 --> 00:44:10,076
Speaker 10: thing that she will never experience.

684
00:44:10,156 --> 00:44:12,076
Speaker 12: And I think it's what I've experienced the most stuff.

685
00:44:13,876 --> 00:44:17,756
Speaker 1: A minute before, we were joking about Toby Keith. Now

686
00:44:17,876 --> 00:44:22,076
Speaker 1: Casey is pensive as she compares her mother's life to

687
00:44:22,236 --> 00:44:22,956
Speaker 1: her own.

688
00:44:23,996 --> 00:44:26,716
Speaker 10: Not being able to make a relationship work the first

689
00:44:26,836 --> 00:44:28,796
Speaker 10: eighteen thousand times out of the gate or you know,

690
00:44:28,836 --> 00:44:29,996
Speaker 10: officially the first two and.

691
00:44:31,476 --> 00:44:34,156
Speaker 6: Not being a mother and she real close.

692
00:44:35,156 --> 00:44:35,796
Speaker 12: Yeah, I love her.

693
00:44:37,156 --> 00:44:38,156
Speaker 11: Go to church where they're right?

694
00:44:38,316 --> 00:44:39,596
Speaker 12: Do I sit still?

695
00:44:40,316 --> 00:44:41,196
Speaker 10: Because she makes me?

696
00:44:41,396 --> 00:44:42,356
Speaker 1: You know, I stay awake.

697
00:44:42,556 --> 00:44:42,996
Speaker 6: It's good.

698
00:44:44,276 --> 00:44:47,356
Speaker 13: When I was a kid, if I'd get bored in

699
00:44:47,436 --> 00:44:49,156
Speaker 13: church and my mother'd reach them and pinch me.

700
00:44:49,436 --> 00:44:53,396
Speaker 1: Oh, I got smacked, Casey, Can you play that song

701
00:44:53,476 --> 00:44:54,676
Speaker 1: for us? Is it going to be two?

702
00:44:54,916 --> 00:45:00,716
Speaker 12: Let's see? Okay, Okay, well I will see if this happens.

703
00:45:14,436 --> 00:45:17,476
Speaker 10: She grew up playing cowgirl.

704
00:45:18,596 --> 00:45:20,556
Speaker 12: In bil Road Town.

705
00:45:21,876 --> 00:45:24,596
Speaker 10: Dream and she'd see, Oh, shoot, hold on, there's a

706
00:45:24,596 --> 00:45:26,356
Speaker 10: lit line bet Elvis in this that's just random.

707
00:45:26,516 --> 00:45:28,676
Speaker 12: Hold on dream and see chee Holly. But I'm gonna

708
00:45:28,676 --> 00:45:46,476
Speaker 12: do again. What did I just say? Sorry, I'm thinking

709
00:45:46,516 --> 00:45:49,156
Speaker 12: about mom. She grew up playing cowgirl.

710
00:45:49,396 --> 00:45:52,276
Speaker 10: She grew up playing cowgirl.

711
00:45:53,436 --> 00:45:55,556
Speaker 12: In a railroad town.

712
00:45:56,916 --> 00:46:04,916
Speaker 10: Dream and she'd see Hollywood someday, she knew, some distant Friday.

713
00:46:04,676 --> 00:46:08,836
Speaker 1: Night with a cigarette, just.

714
00:46:11,396 --> 00:46:18,996
Speaker 12: They would come in and carry you away as far

715
00:46:19,236 --> 00:46:24,556
Speaker 12: shake Coulsie from there. Those were just that's all right.

716
00:46:27,396 --> 00:46:28,156
Speaker 12: Hold on second.

717
00:46:31,796 --> 00:46:34,956
Speaker 1: My first reaction to Casey's failure of memory was to

718
00:46:35,036 --> 00:46:38,316
Speaker 1: be embarrassed for her, worried that she had lost control.

719
00:46:39,276 --> 00:46:41,996
Speaker 1: That's the way we're trained to think. Just listen to

720
00:46:42,036 --> 00:46:49,036
Speaker 1: the words I've just used, failure, embarrassed, worried in one

721
00:46:49,076 --> 00:46:52,476
Speaker 1: way or another. That's what this season of Revisionist History

722
00:46:52,516 --> 00:46:55,636
Speaker 1: has been about, about the ways we judge each other

723
00:46:55,756 --> 00:46:59,316
Speaker 1: for our mistakes and choices. The easiest thing in the

724
00:46:59,356 --> 00:47:03,396
Speaker 1: world is to look at those mistakes and condemn. The

725
00:47:03,516 --> 00:47:07,076
Speaker 1: much harder thing is to look at those mistakes and understand.

726
00:47:09,276 --> 00:47:16,276
Speaker 12: In December anywhere and address her Mama maid. She looked dark,

727
00:47:16,396 --> 00:47:22,436
Speaker 12: grown up, standing, there like that had a honeymoon in

728
00:47:22,636 --> 00:47:30,156
Speaker 12: Memphis Town. Yeah, she looked for as all around may

729
00:47:30,356 --> 00:47:36,836
Speaker 12: loving the greyhound coming back. As far as she could

730
00:47:36,956 --> 00:47:42,076
Speaker 12: say from there, those were just the facts. Slide. You

731
00:47:42,196 --> 00:47:47,436
Speaker 12: went from somebody's daughter, somebody's.

732
00:47:46,836 --> 00:47:55,436
Speaker 1: Wife, Jesus, Parapraxis is not failure. When the performer slips,

733
00:47:55,956 --> 00:48:01,396
Speaker 1: the audience is not cheated. It's the opposite. Parapraxis is

734
00:48:01,476 --> 00:48:06,796
Speaker 1: a gift. I presented myself as interested in this story,

735
00:48:07,756 --> 00:48:11,316
Speaker 1: but now you know that the subject doesn't just interest me,

736
00:48:11,756 --> 00:48:18,436
Speaker 1: It worries me. Losing control is my great anxiety. When

737
00:48:18,516 --> 00:48:22,916
Speaker 1: Jack White said carefully instead of cleverly, it was a

738
00:48:23,036 --> 00:48:26,076
Speaker 1: hint that playing Elvis wasn't a trivial matter for him.

739
00:48:26,876 --> 00:48:33,236
Speaker 1: It was a sacred act, carefully full of care. And Elvis,

740
00:48:33,676 --> 00:48:37,076
Speaker 1: after the loss of Priscilla, sang a song hit sung

741
00:48:37,236 --> 00:48:39,996
Speaker 1: a thousand times only now in a way that gave

742
00:48:40,076 --> 00:48:48,596
Speaker 1: the audience a window on his pane. Mistakes reveal our vulnerabilities.

743
00:48:49,156 --> 00:48:52,116
Speaker 1: They are the way the world understands us, the way

744
00:48:52,316 --> 00:49:01,276
Speaker 1: performers make their performances real. So Bobby Braddock and I

745
00:49:01,396 --> 00:49:05,356
Speaker 1: sat there listening to Casey's sing, tears in her eyes

746
00:49:05,516 --> 00:49:08,196
Speaker 1: fumbling to remember the lyrics of a song about her mother.

747
00:49:10,436 --> 00:49:13,796
Speaker 1: Fumbling not because your mother didn't matter to her, but

748
00:49:13,916 --> 00:49:14,596
Speaker 1: because she did.

749
00:49:15,516 --> 00:49:24,036
Speaker 12: She's always there, somebody something then everything.

750
00:49:27,956 --> 00:49:32,956
Speaker 1: Daughter, Wow, Dona?

751
00:49:35,076 --> 00:49:36,076
Speaker 12: Who why a fan?

752
00:49:36,596 --> 00:49:36,916
Speaker 2: Mother?

753
00:49:38,396 --> 00:49:39,876
Speaker 8: She's live every life.

754
00:49:40,316 --> 00:49:50,796
Speaker 12: But she'd say, that's just call Alma. She's always there,

755
00:49:54,716 --> 00:49:55,716
Speaker 12: somebody's some.

756
00:50:00,356 --> 00:50:03,636
Speaker 1: God, it's beautiful. Why are you covering your mouth?

757
00:50:03,836 --> 00:50:05,716
Speaker 12: I'm just it's just weird.

758
00:50:07,996 --> 00:50:10,796
Speaker 10: Because I've never it's just weird when you're thinking about

759
00:50:10,876 --> 00:50:13,356
Speaker 10: what it is like, I just thought, oh, bad memory,

760
00:50:13,396 --> 00:50:16,956
Speaker 10: too many songs, old, too many songs in there. But

761
00:50:17,036 --> 00:50:20,996
Speaker 10: at any point in time, I could pull out a

762
00:50:21,156 --> 00:50:23,796
Speaker 10: rap from new edition from nineteen eighty two, like why

763
00:50:23,916 --> 00:50:26,796
Speaker 10: is that in there? And something that you wrote is

764
00:50:26,876 --> 00:50:27,356
Speaker 10: not in there?

765
00:50:28,156 --> 00:50:28,916
Speaker 12: That is so weird?

766
00:50:30,996 --> 00:50:35,436
Speaker 1: It's not weird. A lesser person would have sung it perfectly.

767
00:50:53,276 --> 00:50:56,156
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Season three of Revisionist History,

768
00:50:56,796 --> 00:50:59,276
Speaker 1: And if you like this episode, you'll enjoy my new

769
00:50:59,356 --> 00:51:02,796
Speaker 1: series launching later this year. It's called Broken Record, and

770
00:51:02,916 --> 00:51:07,116
Speaker 1: you can subscribe right now on Apple Podcasts. Revisionist History

771
00:51:07,276 --> 00:51:10,756
Speaker 1: is a Panoply production and your producer is Mia LaBelle,

772
00:51:10,836 --> 00:51:15,156
Speaker 1: with Jacob Smith and Camille Baptista. Our editor is Julia Barton.

773
00:51:15,756 --> 00:51:19,276
Speaker 1: Lawn Williams is our engineer. Fact checking by Beth Johnson.

774
00:51:19,676 --> 00:51:23,996
Speaker 1: Original music by Luis Skira. Special thanks to Kim Green

775
00:51:24,156 --> 00:51:28,396
Speaker 1: and Hal Humphries of Storyboard e MP in Nashville and

776
00:51:28,516 --> 00:51:31,956
Speaker 1: here in New York. Thanks to Jason Gambrell, Evan Viola,

777
00:51:32,516 --> 00:51:39,516
Speaker 1: Rachel Strom, Nicole Bunsis, Kate Mescal, Kristen Meinzer, Carle Migliore,

778
00:51:39,876 --> 00:51:45,636
Speaker 1: Andy Bauers, and of course El Hafe Jacob Weisberg. I'm

779
00:51:45,676 --> 00:52:12,236
Speaker 1: Malcolm Glamo, Okay, so it will be. I wonder if

780
00:52:13,196 --> 00:52:19,476
Speaker 1: you're lonesome tonight. You know, someone said that the world's

781
00:52:19,476 --> 00:52:25,556
Speaker 1: a stage and each must play a part. Fate had

782
00:52:25,596 --> 00:52:31,276
Speaker 1: me playing in love you as my sweetheart. Act one

783
00:52:31,436 --> 00:52:34,836
Speaker 1: was when we met. I loved you at first glance.

784
00:52:36,156 --> 00:52:39,676
Speaker 1: You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a que.

785
00:52:41,796 --> 00:52:46,476
Speaker 1: Then came act too. You seem to change, and you

786
00:52:46,596 --> 00:52:53,316
Speaker 1: acted strange and why I'll never know. Honey. You lie

787
00:52:53,436 --> 00:52:55,876
Speaker 1: when you said you loved me, and I had no

788
00:52:56,116 --> 00:53:00,196
Speaker 1: cause to doubt you. But I'd rather go on hearing

789
00:53:00,276 --> 00:53:06,156
Speaker 1: your lies than go on living without you. Now the

790
00:53:06,236 --> 00:53:11,956
Speaker 1: stage is bare, and I'm standing there with emptyiness all around.

791
00:53:13,636 --> 00:53:17,036
Speaker 1: And if you won't come back to me, then make

792
00:53:17,116 --> 00:53:21,996
Speaker 1: them bring the curtain down. How about doing nice, very good.

793
00:53:22,476 --> 00:53:24,316
Speaker 1: I must say I'm not very musical.

794
00:53:24,396 --> 00:53:25,116
Speaker 5: No, it's very good.

795
00:53:25,196 --> 00:53:26,316
Speaker 4: That's good, yeah,