WEBVTT - Encore: Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:23.596 Pushkin to introduce this episode. I just want to relate 0:00:23.796 --> 0:00:27.476 how random my journey to it was. I was reading 0:00:27.476 --> 0:00:29.676 a book I can't even remember what it was, and 0:00:29.716 --> 0:00:32.516 then a footnote I always read the footnotes. The author 0:00:32.596 --> 0:00:35.716 said the psychologist whose work she was referring to had 0:00:35.756 --> 0:00:39.876 done a very strange paper once about Elvis, at which 0:00:39.876 --> 0:00:42.316 point I stopped reading the book and looked up the 0:00:42.436 --> 0:00:46.316 very strange paper about Elvis. It was by Alan Elms. 0:00:46.476 --> 0:00:49.516 It was amazing, So immediately I go to the next question. 0:00:49.916 --> 0:00:53.676 Was Alan Elms still alive? Yes, living in Davis, California. 0:00:53.916 --> 0:00:56.836 Next step, I gotta go see him. So I immediately 0:00:56.836 --> 0:01:00.116 fly to San Francisco rent a car, but the rental 0:01:00.116 --> 0:01:03.396 agency is out of all cars except for a bright 0:01:03.756 --> 0:01:07.476 canary yellow Chevy Corvette, which I take happily. But then 0:01:07.556 --> 0:01:10.476 halfway to Davis, driving at speeds that are very, very 0:01:10.516 --> 0:01:13.796 far from legal, I start thinking, what's this guy going 0:01:13.836 --> 0:01:15.516 to think of me if I show up in a 0:01:15.556 --> 0:01:19.716 bright canary yellow Corvette. He's a brilliant psychologist. I don't 0:01:19.716 --> 0:01:22.796 want him pre judging me, So I park it around 0:01:22.796 --> 0:01:26.076 the corner, walk to his house and spend a lovely 0:01:26.116 --> 0:01:29.756 afternoon with him. Sadly he was feeling poorly at the 0:01:29.796 --> 0:01:32.076 time and didn't speak well enough for me to use 0:01:32.116 --> 0:01:35.236 the tape of his interview. But my spontaneous journey set 0:01:35.276 --> 0:01:38.876 the correct tone, I think for this whole episode, which 0:01:38.916 --> 0:01:42.116 is that it was intended to be a caper, a 0:01:42.156 --> 0:01:46.676 grand caper in which many crazy, unexpected things happen, and 0:01:47.396 --> 0:01:50.916 as it will discover. So it was, by the way, 0:01:51.076 --> 0:01:53.236 the thing that Alan Elms and I talked the most 0:01:53.276 --> 0:01:56.236 about was not actually his Alva's paper. It was another 0:01:56.316 --> 0:01:58.836 even more genius thing he once wrote about the Wizard 0:01:58.836 --> 0:02:01.716 of Oz, which I promise you that I will get 0:02:01.756 --> 0:02:06.436 to one day. Here a visionist history, Join me for 0:02:06.516 --> 0:02:13.476 a walk down revisionist history memory Lane. The New York 0:02:13.556 --> 0:02:18.196 Psychoanalytics Society and Institute is in a very formal European 0:02:18.236 --> 0:02:21.436 style building on a quiet side street on the upper 0:02:21.476 --> 0:02:26.436 east side of Manhattan. Oak tables, high ceilings. In the library, 0:02:26.476 --> 0:02:31.196 long ribbons of leather bound volumes, and five different busts 0:02:31.236 --> 0:02:35.636 of Sigmund Freud all in a row. I went there 0:02:35.756 --> 0:02:40.356 to meet with the Society's president, Michelle Press, a psychoanalyst 0:02:40.356 --> 0:02:44.356 herself with that lovely quality of patience and openness. The 0:02:44.396 --> 0:02:47.796 best therapists always have. I wanted to talk with her 0:02:47.956 --> 0:02:51.316 about a subject that I've always found deeply interesting. What 0:02:51.476 --> 0:03:00.956 Freud called parapraxis, but not just anyone's parapraxis, the King's parapraxis. 0:03:05.276 --> 0:03:08.676 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:03:08.916 --> 0:03:14.676 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. After the first 0:03:14.676 --> 0:03:18.436 two episodes on Memory earlier this season, I decided to 0:03:18.436 --> 0:03:27.796 do a third. It involves an odyssey. This odyssey took 0:03:27.836 --> 0:03:30.996 me from the pages of the Handbook of Psychobiography to 0:03:31.116 --> 0:03:34.836 a shrine in Tennessee, to the legendary Battery Studios in 0:03:34.916 --> 0:03:38.276 Times Square, and to the hushed offices of the New 0:03:38.356 --> 0:03:42.796 York Psychoanalytics Society, where I sat with Michelle Press in 0:03:42.796 --> 0:03:46.156 search of an answer to a simple question. What if 0:03:46.156 --> 0:03:49.036 a singer couldn't remember the words to a song, a 0:03:49.076 --> 0:03:52.756 song he had sung a thousand times, particular parts of the song, 0:03:53.076 --> 0:03:56.916 the same part of the song, over and over. What 0:03:56.956 --> 0:03:59.116 would that tell us about the singer? 0:04:07.476 --> 0:04:11.596 It was a term in German faulty acts or faulty functions. 0:04:12.076 --> 0:04:16.316 It would be slips of the tongue. It could be misreadings, mishearings, 0:04:16.676 --> 0:04:17.996 but it's Freud's invention. 0:04:19.076 --> 0:04:23.836 Michelle Press is talking about parapraxis from the Greek para 0:04:23.916 --> 0:04:30.876 meaning abnormal, beyond praxis meaning act, abnormal speech acts, or 0:04:31.156 --> 0:04:35.716 as they are more colloquially known, Freudian slips. Does Freud 0:04:35.836 --> 0:04:39.316 mean that there are no accidental slips or that if 0:04:39.356 --> 0:04:41.516 you look at the range of accidental slips you can 0:04:41.516 --> 0:04:42.276 find meaning in some. 0:04:43.236 --> 0:04:46.556 So when you read him, he doesn't want to sound 0:04:46.636 --> 0:04:51.436 that kind of definitive. He'll say, yes, maybe one might 0:04:51.516 --> 0:04:54.596 prove that there are some that are truly accidental, or 0:04:54.596 --> 0:04:59.836 truly a result of fatigue or of maybe some medical illness. 0:05:00.396 --> 0:05:02.276 But he said, if you do the work, one will 0:05:02.356 --> 0:05:05.796 find the reasons for the slip, that they're not accidental, 0:05:05.796 --> 0:05:08.716 that they have. He called it a sense, and that 0:05:08.716 --> 0:05:13.836 that's sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious 0:05:13.876 --> 0:05:17.476 ideas that are trying to find expression but are because 0:05:17.516 --> 0:05:21.476 they're unacceptable. They emerge in these ways when one might 0:05:21.516 --> 0:05:22.396 be unguarded. 0:05:22.916 --> 0:05:27.516 Now, is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion 0:05:27.636 --> 0:05:28.836 of parapraxis? 0:05:28.916 --> 0:05:29.196 Yes? 0:05:31.196 --> 0:05:34.756 What was a less. 0:05:36.476 --> 0:05:47.916 Over here sun metal strain. 0:05:50.596 --> 0:05:54.196 In nineteen fifty six early in his career, Elvis Presley 0:05:54.196 --> 0:05:57.916 recorded a song called Old Shep. It's a sentimental song 0:05:58.116 --> 0:06:00.756 about a boy and his dog, Shep, written in the 0:06:00.836 --> 0:06:04.596 nineteen thirties by Red Foley. The dog gets old and sick. 0:06:04.956 --> 0:06:08.156 The vet says there's no hope. The boy aims his 0:06:08.276 --> 0:06:10.116 rifle at Shep to put him out of his misery, 0:06:10.636 --> 0:06:13.476 but he can't pull the trigger. He lies down next 0:06:13.516 --> 0:06:16.676 to Shep cradles him in his arms as the dog 0:06:16.756 --> 0:06:19.156 dies and the song ends. 0:06:21.276 --> 0:06:29.716 Old Shelbie has gone weather, good dog, It's gold. 0:06:30.676 --> 0:06:43.556 And whoever. But if dolls have a heaven. 0:06:44.556 --> 0:06:47.516 That's one way I know. 0:06:49.276 --> 0:06:51.196 Old shepherds. 0:06:52.316 --> 0:06:55.076 Wonderful. 0:06:58.876 --> 0:07:01.916 Old Shep is not one of Elvis's more famous songs, 0:07:02.596 --> 0:07:05.196 but in an essay published in two thousand and five 0:07:05.316 --> 0:07:09.476 on Elvis, the psychologists Alan Elms and Bruce Heller having 0:07:09.516 --> 0:07:14.276 aside about a small but significant discrepancy between the original 0:07:14.356 --> 0:07:18.196 version of Old Shep and Elvis's cover. I'm going to 0:07:18.236 --> 0:07:20.716 come back to Heller and Elms in a while because 0:07:20.756 --> 0:07:25.316 they really do the most thorough analysis of Elvis's lyrical parapraxis. 0:07:25.876 --> 0:07:30.436 But let's start with Old Shep. Listen to Hank Snow 0:07:30.756 --> 0:07:34.836 performing the lyrics as they were originally written. The boy 0:07:34.916 --> 0:07:38.516 has just put away his gun, realizing he can't shoot Shep. 0:07:40.276 --> 0:07:43.956 So I threw down a let old gun and ran 0:07:44.076 --> 0:07:51.196 right up to his signe ladies, faithful, old head, right online, 0:07:51.236 --> 0:07:58.716 knee and friends. I stroked the best pound little man 0:07:59.436 --> 0:08:07.196 ever found. I even cried so I scarcely could see. 0:08:08.476 --> 0:08:10.796 Now listen to Elvis sing his. 0:08:10.796 --> 0:08:20.876 Version, I had strong the best friend, not a man. 0:08:22.476 --> 0:08:23.516 I cry. 0:08:24.716 --> 0:08:32.996 Sauscuriously good see Hanks no sings I stroked the best 0:08:33.036 --> 0:08:36.476 pal a man ever found, meaning that the boy considers 0:08:36.516 --> 0:08:39.916 an act of violence against his best pal, then decides 0:08:39.956 --> 0:08:44.156 against it and takes instead the path of nurture and sympathy. 0:08:44.596 --> 0:08:49.956 He recovers his humanity. But Elvis sings, I had struck 0:08:50.196 --> 0:08:53.396 the best friend a man ever had, which turns the 0:08:53.396 --> 0:08:56.636 meaning of the song completely upside down. The boy does 0:08:56.676 --> 0:09:00.276 not recover his humanity. He now holds himself responsible for 0:09:00.316 --> 0:09:03.116 an act of violence against Shep, an act of violence 0:09:03.156 --> 0:09:07.156 that in fact he did not commit. Stroke becomes struck, 0:09:07.476 --> 0:09:09.996 and all of a sudden, the song about moral redemption 0:09:10.636 --> 0:09:16.156 turns into a song about morbid remorse. Now I suppose 0:09:16.196 --> 0:09:20.556 you can say stroke struck whatever those two words sound 0:09:20.556 --> 0:09:23.436 the same. It's just a cover, but it's not just 0:09:23.516 --> 0:09:27.036 a cover. Alvis was obsessed with Old Shep. It's the 0:09:27.076 --> 0:09:29.596 first song he ever learned on the guitar. He played 0:09:29.596 --> 0:09:32.876 it incessantly as a child. At age ten, he played 0:09:32.916 --> 0:09:36.436 it at the Mississippi Alabama Fair, his first public performance. 0:09:36.876 --> 0:09:39.756 He played it at his high school talent show and won. 0:09:40.436 --> 0:09:43.116 He played it on dates with girls. He played it 0:09:43.236 --> 0:09:46.836 well into his career. And why does the song resonate 0:09:46.916 --> 0:09:51.396 so much with him? It's a song about love, betrayal, 0:09:51.516 --> 0:09:56.356 and loss, themes that are at the center of Elvis's life. 0:09:56.556 --> 0:09:59.916 He's a twinless twin. Someone who's twin died in utero, 0:10:00.196 --> 0:10:03.236 and he's obsessed by that fact. He brings it up 0:10:03.236 --> 0:10:06.116 again and again. The loss of someone who should have 0:10:06.156 --> 0:10:11.436 been his closest friend. Alvis's mother, Gladys, is to say 0:10:11.436 --> 0:10:15.996 the least unusual. She's controlling, intense, he calls her baby. 0:10:16.516 --> 0:10:20.876 Gladys died when Alvis was just twenty three. When he 0:10:20.916 --> 0:10:23.716 first saw her casket, he threw himself on top of 0:10:23.716 --> 0:10:28.076 her body, then stepped back and talked about how beautiful 0:10:28.116 --> 0:10:31.676 she was while pointing to her dead feet. He called 0:10:31.676 --> 0:10:35.236 them her little suities. He did this again and again. 0:10:36.996 --> 0:10:39.396 At the end of the funeral service, he lay on 0:10:39.436 --> 0:10:42.676 top of her casket, saying, I want to go with you. 0:10:43.236 --> 0:10:45.996 I don't want to stay here. I can't be without you. 0:10:48.036 --> 0:10:51.556 And we haven't even gotten to Priscilla, Alvis's wife. He 0:10:51.636 --> 0:10:54.676 spotted her when she was fourteen and eventually convinced her 0:10:54.756 --> 0:10:56.596 to move in with him in Memphis. 0:10:57.276 --> 0:11:01.236 Once Alvis took you to a move Yes he did. 0:11:02.996 --> 0:11:06.476 This is Priscilla being interviewed by Barbara Walters in nineteen 0:11:06.476 --> 0:11:06.996 eighty five. 0:11:07.756 --> 0:11:09.076 Why why that fascination? 0:11:09.716 --> 0:11:10.196 I don't know. 0:11:10.556 --> 0:11:12.356 I don't know what the fascination was. This is not 0:11:12.436 --> 0:11:14.356 the first time that he had done this. I don't 0:11:14.396 --> 0:11:16.476 know if it was for the shock value, you know, 0:11:16.516 --> 0:11:20.956 to see how people would react, or just for his 0:11:21.116 --> 0:11:24.876 own thrill of it. You wrote, there were times when 0:11:24.876 --> 0:11:28.956 you and Elvis spent days in the bedroom, freezing bedroom. 0:11:28.956 --> 0:11:31.996 He liked it be cold, the windows with blackout drapes 0:11:32.076 --> 0:11:37.356 or no sun light enter it. Day after day. It 0:11:37.436 --> 0:11:38.276 went in two weeks. 0:11:38.556 --> 0:11:39.716 Yes, we stayed like that. 0:11:39.836 --> 0:11:40.836 We had our food. 0:11:40.596 --> 0:11:43.596 Delivered by the door and. 0:11:46.996 --> 0:11:47.716 It was cold. 0:11:47.796 --> 0:11:49.636 I mean, he did like a cold, and it was dark, 0:11:50.836 --> 0:11:54.916 and it could get real lonely. And that's how he 0:11:56.756 --> 0:12:01.276 liked it at times, like a cocoon, almost like a womb. 0:12:01.276 --> 0:12:06.076 I guess you think. Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on 0:12:06.116 --> 0:12:09.716 a white couch surrounded by pink flowers. Scilla is in 0:12:09.756 --> 0:12:14.236 a strapless sun dress. She looks amazing. Barbara Walters turns 0:12:14.236 --> 0:12:18.116 to her and says, Alvis controlled your looks, your clothes, 0:12:18.156 --> 0:12:22.356 your hair, your makeup. He controlled you totally. Priscilla says, yes, 0:12:22.796 --> 0:12:23.236 he did. 0:12:23.876 --> 0:12:27.636 Then six years you lived there before he decided to 0:12:27.636 --> 0:12:31.996 marry you. In those six years of sleeping with him 0:12:32.036 --> 0:12:36.436 every night, he never had intercourse with you. You wrote 0:12:36.436 --> 0:12:38.756 in your book that there were times when you begged 0:12:38.836 --> 0:12:48.236 him six years so why well again, you know, I 0:12:48.276 --> 0:12:50.916 can only go back to what his concept was as 0:12:50.996 --> 0:12:56.676 what he wanted in a woman, and somewhere he along 0:12:57.676 --> 0:13:00.556 in his past he said that he wanted a virgin. 0:13:01.636 --> 0:13:07.076 Alvis is complicated, and what does Freud's theory of parapraxis say? 0:13:07.636 --> 0:13:13.836 The complicated feelings inappropriate, maybe unacceptable feelings are normally suppressed, 0:13:14.556 --> 0:13:17.036 but every now and again, some little bit of that 0:13:17.116 --> 0:13:21.436 buried emotion slips out and if you're paying attention and 0:13:21.556 --> 0:13:26.876 listening closely, that little slip can tell you something. Struck 0:13:27.596 --> 0:13:32.636 for stroke. But old chap is just the beginning. For Elvis, 0:13:33.036 --> 0:13:38.116 the real pairapraxis occurs in are You Lonesome Tonight? A 0:13:38.196 --> 0:13:41.636 song originally written in the nineteen twenties and which Elvis 0:13:41.636 --> 0:13:43.516 took to the top of the charts just after he 0:13:43.596 --> 0:13:54.556 came out of the Army. 0:13:54.596 --> 0:13:56.396 Are You Longed. 0:13:59.716 --> 0:14:05.236 Wish A Day? Zero six? 0:14:05.356 --> 0:14:14.036 Take two. 0:14:13.356 --> 0:14:16.756 Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music Row in Nashville, 0:14:17.236 --> 0:14:21.516 April fourth, nineteen sixty The recordings from the original session 0:14:21.796 --> 0:14:23.916 now held in the Sony Music Archive. 0:14:24.836 --> 0:14:27.796 Yeah, this is there's numerous takes here, so they fall apart, 0:14:27.916 --> 0:14:29.676 they make a mistake, and what have you? 0:14:30.556 --> 0:14:35.116 John Jackson and Vic Annissini from Sony Me all listening 0:14:35.156 --> 0:14:39.236 together at the legendary Battery Studios in Manhattan, where everyone 0:14:39.316 --> 0:14:44.676 from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen recorded Holy Ground. I 0:14:44.756 --> 0:14:47.196 started my quest at the very beginning. 0:14:49.076 --> 0:14:52.236 It is your hot till. 0:14:53.996 --> 0:14:55.796 Share, I harm. 0:14:59.236 --> 0:14:59.916 Toll me d. 0:15:01.596 --> 0:15:02.916 Are You Lonesome? 0:15:04.276 --> 0:15:17.916 To Amaziah? Is he uh? When he records that? Are 0:15:17.956 --> 0:15:20.036 the Jordanaires singing along with him? Or they're laying that 0:15:20.076 --> 0:15:24.076 tracked down spar no livething a. Yeah. 0:15:24.116 --> 0:15:27.236 He always preferred to have everyone in one room and 0:15:27.316 --> 0:15:27.996 record live. 0:15:28.316 --> 0:15:30.476 Oh, even in one room, not in booths or no no, 0:15:30.476 --> 0:15:30.836 no, no no. 0:15:30.836 --> 0:15:34.796 He hated booths. Recording the song was not Elvis's idea. 0:15:35.396 --> 0:15:37.476 It was a favorite of the wife of his manager, 0:15:37.556 --> 0:15:41.276 Tom Parker. In the studio, Elvis asked the lights be 0:15:41.356 --> 0:15:44.836 turned off so the room was in darkness. He did 0:15:44.876 --> 0:15:47.596 five takes. He didn't like any of them. 0:15:48.116 --> 0:15:50.116 It was four in the morning when he recorded it, 0:15:50.716 --> 0:15:52.796 so he made everyone get out of the studio go. 0:15:52.796 --> 0:15:54.796 Away, and then he just you know, did it. 0:15:55.396 --> 0:15:57.556 And then they this is the second take, which they 0:15:57.916 --> 0:16:00.676 told him how the background singers, you know, pea popped 0:16:01.276 --> 0:16:04.196 because he said, just stop the tape, you know, I'm done. 0:16:04.436 --> 0:16:06.036 They said, just do it once more because you know, 0:16:06.116 --> 0:16:07.956 we hit a pea pop on there. So the third 0:16:07.956 --> 0:16:08.956 take ends up being the master. 0:16:09.396 --> 0:16:09.956 Oh, I see. 0:16:10.356 --> 0:16:12.516 Then held the label held it back for seven eight 0:16:12.556 --> 0:16:13.716 months because he didn't. 0:16:13.476 --> 0:16:14.676 Realize what they had on their hands. 0:16:14.756 --> 0:16:17.316 Yeah, it was seven months. 0:16:17.356 --> 0:16:19.636 I think after he recreated they finally released it as 0:16:19.636 --> 0:16:22.796 a single and didn't go out that he had done 0:16:22.796 --> 0:16:26.916 eight songs for Elvis's back, and this was just like, yeah, 0:16:27.356 --> 0:16:28.076 just try this. 0:16:27.996 --> 0:16:31.596 One, recorded in the wee hours of the morning in 0:16:31.716 --> 0:16:35.396 darkness as a favor to someone else, a song neither 0:16:35.476 --> 0:16:39.436 Elvis nor his label particularly liked. It's almost like the 0:16:39.476 --> 0:16:42.276 song had a curse on it right from the beginning, 0:16:42.996 --> 0:16:46.076 and from then on Elvis could never quite get it right. 0:16:48.836 --> 0:16:50.996 I talked about this with Michelle Press at the New 0:16:51.036 --> 0:16:55.436 York Psychoanalytics Society. Elvis wasn't typically someone who forgot the 0:16:55.476 --> 0:16:58.476 words to the songs he sang. There's all these examples 0:16:58.556 --> 0:17:00.676 out of his life of him being able to recite, 0:17:00.716 --> 0:17:06.276 to sing from memory massive amounts of stuff. I'm worried. 0:17:06.396 --> 0:17:09.476 I'm interested about that. There's a little slip worried about 0:17:09.476 --> 0:17:14.476 I said, I'm worried about that. I'm interested in that, 0:17:14.796 --> 0:17:17.836 and I'm wondering what the what would you make of that? 0:17:18.836 --> 0:17:23.356 As a psychoanalyst. I try to go on, but of 0:17:23.396 --> 0:17:27.596 course I'm talking to a hardcore Freudian. I meant to 0:17:27.596 --> 0:17:31.876 say I was interested, but what came out was worried. 0:17:32.716 --> 0:17:35.796 I mean, I'm still caught on your slip, obviously thinking 0:17:35.916 --> 0:17:39.316 what do you make of it? So one thought was 0:17:39.396 --> 0:17:41.756 whether the slip might be a key to something that 0:17:41.796 --> 0:17:47.476 you're figuring out and puzzling with him, because you're right now, 0:17:47.476 --> 0:17:48.516 you're immersed in him. 0:17:49.636 --> 0:17:53.236 Oh I am. I've been singing this song under my 0:17:53.356 --> 0:17:57.516 breath for months. I can't understand why I've never been 0:17:57.556 --> 0:17:59.996 an Elvis fan. I don't own a single song of his, 0:18:00.956 --> 0:18:03.516 or am I am? I drawn to this story because 0:18:04.476 --> 0:18:08.516 isn't this story that I'm talking to you the great 0:18:08.556 --> 0:18:11.916 anxiety of anyone in a creative field, that moment when 0:18:11.916 --> 0:18:18.036 you lose control, right where the the presentation to the 0:18:18.076 --> 0:18:24.156 audience is unmasked. I want to I want to show you. 0:18:25.156 --> 0:18:28.676 I take up my laptop, pull up YouTube. There's a 0:18:28.716 --> 0:18:31.916 mountain of Elvis on YouTube, one of the last performances 0:18:31.916 --> 0:18:35.316 of his life. It's bananas. I mean, he just it's 0:18:35.876 --> 0:18:38.636 he's singing a song he's singing thousands of times, and. 0:18:38.636 --> 0:18:39.076 He just. 0:18:40.636 --> 0:18:53.036 Completely loses control of it. I can skip it. I 0:18:53.076 --> 0:18:53.716 wonder if. 0:18:55.196 --> 0:18:57.716 Two longs of my life. 0:18:57.996 --> 0:19:01.316 You know, someone said the worlds of stags in each 0:19:01.356 --> 0:19:07.876 of us play apart they had playing in plus tags, 0:19:09.276 --> 0:19:14.636 iriginal select every I never missed you, and it came 0:19:14.676 --> 0:19:15.676 back to it. 0:19:15.756 --> 0:19:20.596 For got the word seem to change. When I first 0:19:20.636 --> 0:19:24.076 saw it it as someone in a I mean, I'm 0:19:24.116 --> 0:19:27.036 not Elvis, but I'm someone in a creative field. It 0:19:27.276 --> 0:19:30.796 terrified me. It's like up on stage doing what he's 0:19:31.756 --> 0:19:34.596 paid to do, and he he just. 0:19:36.196 --> 0:19:40.956 Really won during your life, You're gonna go on living 0:19:41.036 --> 0:19:41.436 without you. 0:19:43.356 --> 0:19:47.756 Now the stage is bare and I'm sending there without 0:19:47.796 --> 0:19:48.236 a new hair. 0:19:48.316 --> 0:19:48.636 I don't know. 0:19:52.116 --> 0:19:52.876 If you'll come. 0:19:52.756 --> 0:19:53.156 Back to me. 0:19:57.516 --> 0:20:00.636 Every live performance he's ever given of this that we 0:20:00.756 --> 0:20:04.236 have on tape, he mangles the bridge. He can't do 0:20:04.316 --> 0:20:07.196 it right. It's which he's returning to the song again 0:20:07.236 --> 0:20:08.796 and again and again and again and again and doing 0:20:08.836 --> 0:20:14.116 the same in this particular always a bride so singing party. 0:20:15.076 --> 0:20:16.836 Over how many years did this go on? 0:20:17.756 --> 0:20:20.636 Yours Okay? 0:20:20.796 --> 0:20:23.516 In nineteen eighty to this life and version was rare 0:20:23.716 --> 0:20:25.316 in the UK, and each one the twenty five and 0:20:25.356 --> 0:20:26.676 the British Singles chart. 0:20:27.436 --> 0:20:30.836 At Battery Studios. I made the Sony guys play every 0:20:31.196 --> 0:20:36.116 version they had. They even have names, Laughing Elvis, Crazy Elvis, 0:20:36.756 --> 0:20:38.916 each one stranger than the one before. 0:20:40.836 --> 0:20:42.796 The World's a stagies in East must play a part. 0:21:00.676 --> 0:21:10.956 There's sweat and tears streaming down his face, and I 0:21:10.996 --> 0:21:12.196 had no call for Dodger. 0:21:17.316 --> 0:21:20.076 It goes on like this, on and on. 0:21:21.716 --> 0:21:26.116 Baby shut. 0:21:27.716 --> 0:21:28.116 Again. 0:21:29.556 --> 0:21:31.996 Tell me? Are you. 0:21:43.756 --> 0:21:44.036 That's it? 0:21:44.236 --> 0:21:44.396 Man? 0:21:45.116 --> 0:21:45.596 Don't do you? 0:21:45.836 --> 0:21:48.596 Don't never hurry and we'll I'll do you O s. 0:21:57.596 --> 0:21:58.836 Have you ever played a song before? 0:21:59.036 --> 0:21:59.076 No? 0:21:59.196 --> 0:22:00.076 I never put it before. 0:22:00.236 --> 0:22:01.676 And it's funny. I played a bunch of. 0:22:03.436 --> 0:22:04.996 Check I put a bunch of his stuff. 0:22:05.356 --> 0:22:08.596 You might flip in the standby switched. 0:22:08.396 --> 0:22:08.916 On the back. 0:22:09.396 --> 0:22:12.756 I'm with Jack White at his studio in Nashville Third 0:22:12.836 --> 0:22:16.076 Man Records. Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, one 0:22:16.116 --> 0:22:19.076 of the great rock and rollers of his generation and 0:22:19.236 --> 0:22:22.556 a huge Elvis fan. He's a shrine to Elvis in 0:22:22.636 --> 0:22:27.156 his hallway, actual shrine. All that's missing is flowers. We 0:22:27.316 --> 0:22:29.916 met in his private office, lots of black and yellow 0:22:29.996 --> 0:22:32.596 and leather and taxidermy. He sat on the couch with 0:22:32.676 --> 0:22:37.916 a guitar. Do you play? Do you play Elvis songs? 0:22:37.916 --> 0:22:38.436 A concert? 0:22:39.396 --> 0:22:39.916 Sometimes? 0:22:39.996 --> 0:22:45.796 I do love like that. 0:22:55.156 --> 0:22:58.516 I want you to love me, love me and just. 0:23:00.676 --> 0:23:05.156 Dream and just save. 0:23:07.836 --> 0:23:13.356 I was gonna say, don't stop, I'm enjoying it. Anything 0:23:13.396 --> 0:23:14.196 any other ones you do? 0:23:15.276 --> 0:23:15.436 Wait? 0:23:15.516 --> 0:23:18.676 Anyway? Why do you why that one? What's it about that? Song. 0:23:19.236 --> 0:23:21.276 I had heard that early from a band called the 0:23:21.276 --> 0:23:23.236 Flat to a Jets that I really liked, and I 0:23:23.316 --> 0:23:25.996 didn't know it was Elvis. And then when i'd heard 0:23:26.036 --> 0:23:28.396 the Elvis version, I had connected the two, like, oh no, really, 0:23:28.596 --> 0:23:30.796 and I started doing it when I put in coffee houses. 0:23:30.836 --> 0:23:33.636 I started playing that when I was like sixteen, Yeah, 0:23:34.996 --> 0:23:36.276 it goes back, which is funny. 0:23:36.676 --> 0:23:39.356 I eventually heard a story of Robert Plant. 0:23:40.876 --> 0:23:44.156 Telling Elvis he loved that song when led Zeppyn met Elvis, 0:23:44.236 --> 0:23:46.756 and then when they walked out out of the hallway 0:23:46.756 --> 0:23:49.316 that Elvis poked his head out in the hallway and 0:23:49.476 --> 0:23:52.836 sang that song to Robert Plan. They sang it back 0:23:52.876 --> 0:23:56.436 to each other, and you were crying and must have 0:23:56.476 --> 0:23:57.516 been an amazing moment. 0:23:58.996 --> 0:24:02.116 Jack White owns the original acetate pressing of Elvis's first 0:24:02.196 --> 0:24:06.756 recording from nineteen fifty three My Happiness. After we talked, 0:24:06.876 --> 0:24:08.796 White took me into his vault to show it to me. 0:24:09.316 --> 0:24:11.996 It's priceless. He asked me if I weren't to hold it. 0:24:12.556 --> 0:24:16.236 I was too terrified to say yes. Jack White seemed 0:24:16.276 --> 0:24:18.676 like the right person to see to try and understand 0:24:18.796 --> 0:24:21.076 Elvis's problem. You are you lonesome? Tonight. 0:24:21.796 --> 0:24:23.076 All right, let me see, we're gonna take a crack. 0:24:23.116 --> 0:24:25.156 It might might have to give a kap worls. 0:24:25.196 --> 0:24:39.916 What are your lone song? Tonight? 0:24:41.716 --> 0:24:42.676 Do you miss me. 0:24:44.196 --> 0:24:44.716 Tonight? 0:24:46.436 --> 0:24:50.276 Are you sorry? We drifted. 0:24:51.276 --> 0:24:51.796 A paw? 0:24:55.276 --> 0:25:01.476 Does your memoir strain through a bride song? 0:25:02.436 --> 0:25:02.676 Day? 0:25:04.636 --> 0:25:09.556 When I kissed you and called you sweet? 0:25:13.356 --> 0:25:18.876 Do the chair in your partner seamanity? 0:25:20.516 --> 0:25:21.276 And then. 0:25:22.716 --> 0:25:29.276 Do you gaze as the door snell and pitcher me? 0:25:29.676 --> 0:25:37.956 Then is your heart fill with fain? Shall I come back? 0:25:38.956 --> 0:25:45.836 Love you till the deed? Are your own song? Son? 0:25:49.676 --> 0:25:52.556 That's the first half of the song. The song version 0:25:52.756 --> 0:25:56.076 all questions A man is wondering whether his lover misses him. 0:25:56.916 --> 0:26:00.236 Then comes the spoken bridge, in which the emotional tables 0:26:00.236 --> 0:26:04.356 are turned and the man leaves himself bare. Are you 0:26:04.436 --> 0:26:07.356 lonesome Tonight? Has been recorded countless times over the years. 0:26:08.076 --> 0:26:10.756 A lot of performers leave out the bridge because it's 0:26:10.836 --> 0:26:15.676 corny and way too long and hard. Elvis kept it in, 0:26:16.756 --> 0:26:17.716 so does Jack White. 0:26:19.956 --> 0:26:25.396 I wonder if you're lonesome tonight? You know someone said 0:26:25.436 --> 0:26:28.836 that the world's a stage and each must play a part. 0:26:29.636 --> 0:26:30.756 I fate had me playing in. 0:26:30.836 --> 0:26:33.196 Love with you as my sweetheart. 0:26:34.076 --> 0:26:35.316 That one was where we met. 0:26:36.676 --> 0:26:39.716 I loved you at first glance. You read your line so. 0:26:39.796 --> 0:26:43.276 Cleverly and never missed a cue. Thing came that too. 0:26:44.596 --> 0:26:45.596 You seem to change. 0:26:45.676 --> 0:26:48.796 You acted strange, and why I've never known. 0:26:53.716 --> 0:26:53.996 Honey. 0:26:54.116 --> 0:26:55.556 You lied when you said. 0:26:55.356 --> 0:26:59.036 You loved me, and I had no cause to doubt you. 0:27:02.036 --> 0:27:04.316 But I'd rather go on hearing your lies. 0:27:05.916 --> 0:27:11.796