WEBVTT - Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:22.156 --> 0:00:25.996 The New York Psychoanalytics Society and Institute is in a 0:00:26.076 --> 0:00:29.956 very formal European style building on a quiet side street 0:00:30.196 --> 0:00:34.956 on the upper East side of Manhattan. Oak tables, high ceilings. 0:00:34.996 --> 0:00:38.756 In the library, long ribbons of leather bound volumes, and 0:00:38.916 --> 0:00:42.716 five different busts of Sigmund Freud, all in a row. 0:00:44.356 --> 0:00:48.076 I went there to meet with the Society's president, Michelle Press, 0:00:48.596 --> 0:00:52.756 a psychoanalyst herself with that lovely quality of patience and 0:00:52.876 --> 0:00:56.636 openness the best therapists always have. I wanted to talk 0:00:56.636 --> 0:00:59.796 with her about a subject that I've always found deeply interesting, 0:01:00.356 --> 0:01:08.716 what Freud called parapraxis, but not just anyone's parapraxis, the 0:01:08.836 --> 0:01:16.796 Kings parapraxis. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to 0:01:16.916 --> 0:01:23.556 Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. After 0:01:23.596 --> 0:01:26.916 the first two episodes on Memory earlier this season, I 0:01:27.036 --> 0:01:36.236 decided to do a third. It involves an odyssey. This 0:01:36.316 --> 0:01:38.716 odyssey took me from the pages of the Handbook of 0:01:38.716 --> 0:01:43.476 Psychobiography to a shrine in Tennessee, to the legendary Battery 0:01:43.516 --> 0:01:47.236 Studios in Times Square, and to the hushed offices of 0:01:47.276 --> 0:01:50.956 the New York Psychoanalytics Society, where I sat with Michelle 0:01:51.036 --> 0:01:54.116 Press in search of an answer to a simple question. 0:01:55.116 --> 0:01:57.716 What if a singer couldn't remember the words to a song, 0:01:58.196 --> 0:02:01.556 a song had sung a thousand times, particular parts of 0:02:01.596 --> 0:02:04.916 the song, the same part of the song, over and over. 0:02:06.036 --> 0:02:08.356 What would that tell us about the singer? 0:02:12.716 --> 0:02:16.796 It was a term in German faulty acts or faulty functions. 0:02:17.316 --> 0:02:21.556 It would be slips of the tongue. It could be misreadings, mishearings, 0:02:21.916 --> 0:02:23.236 but it's Freud's invention. 0:02:24.316 --> 0:02:29.076 Michelle Press is talking about parapraxis, from the Greek para 0:02:29.156 --> 0:02:36.116 meaning abnormal, beyond praxis meaning act, abnormal speech acts, or 0:02:36.436 --> 0:02:40.956 as they are more colloquially known, Freudian slips. Does Freud 0:02:41.116 --> 0:02:44.556 mean that there are no accidental slips, or that if 0:02:44.596 --> 0:02:46.756 you look at the range of accidental slips you can 0:02:46.756 --> 0:02:47.596 find meaning in some. 0:02:48.516 --> 0:02:51.796 So when you read him, he doesn't want to sound 0:02:51.876 --> 0:02:56.676 that kind of definitive. He'll say, yes, maybe one might 0:02:56.756 --> 0:02:59.836 prove that there are some that are truly accidental, or 0:02:59.836 --> 0:03:05.076 truly a result of fatigue or of maybe some medical illness. 0:03:05.676 --> 0:03:07.556 But he said, if you do the work, one will 0:03:07.636 --> 0:03:11.036 find the reasons for this slip, that they're not accidental 0:03:11.076 --> 0:03:13.996 that they have. He called it a sense, and that 0:03:13.996 --> 0:03:19.076 that sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious 0:03:19.116 --> 0:03:22.756 ideas that are trying to find expression but are because 0:03:22.756 --> 0:03:26.716 they're unacceptable. They emerge in these ways when one might 0:03:26.756 --> 0:03:27.636 be unguarded. 0:03:28.156 --> 0:03:32.756 Now, is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion 0:03:32.876 --> 0:03:34.076 of parapraxis? 0:03:34.156 --> 0:03:34.396 Yes? 0:03:36.436 --> 0:03:52.116 What was a less over Here? Sun metal Stream? 0:03:55.836 --> 0:03:59.436 In nineteen fifty six, early in his career, Elvis Presley 0:03:59.476 --> 0:04:03.156 recorded a song called Old Shep. It's a sentimental song 0:04:03.356 --> 0:04:05.996 about a boy and his dog, Shep, written in the 0:04:06.076 --> 0:04:09.836 nineteen thirties by Red Foley. The dog gets old and sick. 0:04:10.196 --> 0:04:13.396 The vet says there's no hope. The boy aims his 0:04:13.516 --> 0:04:15.356 rifle at Shep to put him out of his misery, 0:04:15.916 --> 0:04:18.756 but he can't pull the trigger. He lies down next 0:04:18.756 --> 0:04:21.916 to Shep cradles him in his arms as the dog 0:04:22.036 --> 0:04:24.156 dies and the song ends. 0:04:26.516 --> 0:04:34.276 Old Shelby has gone weather, good dog, It's gold. 0:04:35.916 --> 0:04:45.556 And but if. 0:04:45.516 --> 0:04:56.356 Dolls have a heaven, that's one I know, Oh Shepherds. 0:04:57.556 --> 0:05:06.196 Wonderful who? Old Shep is not one of Elvis's more 0:05:06.276 --> 0:05:09.956 famous songs, but in an essay publish in two thousand 0:05:09.996 --> 0:05:13.836 and five. On Elvis, the psychologists Alan Elms and Bruce 0:05:13.876 --> 0:05:18.116 Heller have an aside about a small but significant discrepancy 0:05:18.556 --> 0:05:22.116 between the original version of Old Shep and Elvis's cover. 0:05:23.036 --> 0:05:24.916 I'm going to come back to Heller and Elms in 0:05:24.956 --> 0:05:28.036 a while because they really do the most thorough analysis 0:05:28.236 --> 0:05:32.876 of Elvis's lyrical parapraxis. But let's start with Old Shep. 0:05:34.516 --> 0:05:37.796 Listen to Hank Snow performing the lyrics as they were 0:05:37.876 --> 0:05:41.556 originally written. The boy has just put away his gun, 0:05:41.916 --> 0:05:44.076 realizing he can't shoot Shep. 0:05:45.516 --> 0:05:49.236 So I threw down let a little gun and ran 0:05:49.356 --> 0:05:56.436 right up to his sign. Ladies, faithful, old head, right online, 0:05:56.516 --> 0:06:03.716 knee and friends. I stroked the best pound a little 0:06:03.756 --> 0:06:10.516 man ever found. I even cried, so I scared good. 0:06:10.556 --> 0:06:15.996 See Now listen to Elvis sing his. 0:06:16.036 --> 0:06:25.956 Version, I had strong, the best friend, not a man. 0:06:27.716 --> 0:06:28.836 I cry. 0:06:29.996 --> 0:06:32.276 Sauscurs good. 0:06:32.436 --> 0:06:38.716 See Hank Snow sings, I stroked the best pal a 0:06:38.796 --> 0:06:42.076 man ever found, meaning that the boy considers an act 0:06:42.076 --> 0:06:45.756 of violence against his best pal, then decides against it 0:06:46.236 --> 0:06:49.996 and takes instead the path of nurture and sympathy. He 0:06:50.076 --> 0:06:55.556 recovers his humanity, But Elvis sings, I had struck the 0:06:55.596 --> 0:06:58.916 best friend a man ever had, which turns the meaning 0:06:58.916 --> 0:07:02.076 of the song completely upside down. The boy does not 0:07:02.116 --> 0:07:05.676 recover his humanity. He now holds himself responsible for an 0:07:05.676 --> 0:07:08.476 act of violence against Shep, an act of violence that, 0:07:08.556 --> 0:07:12.396 in fact, he he did not commit. Stroke becomes struck, 0:07:12.716 --> 0:07:15.236 and all of a sudden, the song about moral redemption 0:07:15.876 --> 0:07:21.396 turns into a song about morbid remorse. Now, I suppose 0:07:21.436 --> 0:07:25.796 you can say stroke, struck whatever those two words sound 0:07:25.796 --> 0:07:28.716 the same. It's just a cover. But it's not just 0:07:28.756 --> 0:07:32.316 a cover. Elvis was obsessed with Old Shep. It's the 0:07:32.316 --> 0:07:34.836 first song he ever learned on the guitar. He played 0:07:34.836 --> 0:07:38.116 it incessantly as a child. At age ten, he played 0:07:38.156 --> 0:07:41.676 it at the Mississippi Alabama Fair, his first public performance. 0:07:42.156 --> 0:07:44.996 He played it at his high school talent show and won. 0:07:45.676 --> 0:07:48.396 He played it on dates with girls. He played it 0:07:48.476 --> 0:07:52.076 well into his career. And why does the song resonate 0:07:52.156 --> 0:07:56.636 so much with him? It's a song about love, betrayal, 0:07:56.756 --> 0:08:01.156 and loss, themes that are at the center of Elvis's life. 0:08:01.796 --> 0:08:05.156 He's a twinless twin, someone who's twin died in Utero 0:08:05.476 --> 0:08:08.476 and He's obsessed by that fact. He brings it up 0:08:08.476 --> 0:08:11.356 again and again. The loss of someone who should have 0:08:11.396 --> 0:08:16.676 been his closest friend, Alvis's mother, Gladys, is to say 0:08:16.676 --> 0:08:21.236 the least unusual. She's controlling, intense, he calls her baby. 0:08:21.796 --> 0:08:26.116 Gladys died when Alvis was just twenty three. When he 0:08:26.156 --> 0:08:28.956 first saw her casket, he threw himself on top of 0:08:28.956 --> 0:08:33.356 her body, then stepped back and talked about how beautiful 0:08:33.396 --> 0:08:36.916 she was. While pointing to her dead feet. He called 0:08:36.956 --> 0:08:40.516 them her little suities. He did this again and again. 0:08:42.236 --> 0:08:44.636 At the end of the funeral service, he lay on 0:08:44.716 --> 0:08:47.916 top of her casket, saying, I want to go with you. 0:08:48.476 --> 0:08:51.236 I don't want to stay here. I can't be without you. 0:08:53.276 --> 0:08:56.836 And we haven't even gotten to Priscilla, Alvis's wife. He 0:08:56.876 --> 0:08:59.916 spotted her when she was fourteen and eventually convinced her 0:08:59.996 --> 0:09:02.916 to move in with him in Memphis. 0:09:02.516 --> 0:09:04.876 Once Alvis took your tool move. 0:09:05.716 --> 0:09:06.476 Yes he did. 0:09:08.236 --> 0:09:11.676 This is Priscilla being interviewed by Barbara Walters in nineteen 0:09:11.756 --> 0:09:12.236 eighty five. 0:09:12.996 --> 0:09:14.396 Why why that fascination? 0:09:14.596 --> 0:09:17.236 Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the fascination was. 0:09:17.276 --> 0:09:19.036 This is not the first time that he had done this. 0:09:19.356 --> 0:09:21.316 I don't know if it was for the shock value, 0:09:21.556 --> 0:09:24.956 you know, to see how people would react, or just 0:09:25.916 --> 0:09:27.996 for his own thrill of it. 0:09:28.436 --> 0:09:30.956 You wrote there were times when you were Elvis spent 0:09:31.156 --> 0:09:35.156 days in the bedroom, freezing bedroom. He liked to be cold. 0:09:35.556 --> 0:09:38.956 The windows with blackout drapes or no sunlight ended day 0:09:38.996 --> 0:09:39.636 after day. 0:09:42.436 --> 0:09:45.196 It went into weeks. Yes, we stayed like that. We 0:09:45.236 --> 0:09:52.956 had our food delivered by the door, and it was cold. 0:09:53.036 --> 0:09:54.876 I mean, he did like a cold and it was dark, 0:09:56.076 --> 0:10:00.036 and it could get real lonely. And that's that's how 0:10:00.076 --> 0:10:06.036 he liked it at times, with a cocoon, almost like 0:10:06.076 --> 0:10:06.516 a womb. 0:10:06.516 --> 0:10:11.316 I guess you think. Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on 0:10:11.356 --> 0:10:14.996 a white couch surrounded by pink flowers. Priscilla is in 0:10:14.996 --> 0:10:19.476 a strapless sun dress. She looks amazing. Barbara Walters turns 0:10:19.516 --> 0:10:23.356 to her and says, Alvis controlled your looks, your clothes, 0:10:23.396 --> 0:10:27.596 your hair, your makeup. He controlled you totally. Priscilla says, yes, 0:10:28.036 --> 0:10:28.476 he did. 0:10:29.116 --> 0:10:32.876 Then six years you lived there before he decided to 0:10:32.876 --> 0:10:37.276 marry you. In those six years of sleeping with him 0:10:37.276 --> 0:10:41.676 every night, he never had intercourse with you. You wrote 0:10:41.716 --> 0:10:43.996 in your book that there were times when you begged 0:10:44.076 --> 0:10:53.476 him six years so why well again, you know, I 0:10:53.516 --> 0:10:56.156 can only go back to what his concept was as 0:10:56.236 --> 0:11:01.916 what he wanted in a woman, and somewhere he along 0:11:02.916 --> 0:11:05.436 in his past he said that he wanted a. 0:11:05.476 --> 0:11:11.116 Virgin Alvis is complicated. And what does Freud's theory of 0:11:11.196 --> 0:11:17.956 parapraxis say that complicated feelings inappropriate, maybe unacceptable feelings are 0:11:17.996 --> 0:11:21.836 normally suppressed. But every now and again, some little bit 0:11:21.916 --> 0:11:25.556 of that buried emotion slips out, and if you're paying 0:11:25.596 --> 0:11:30.076 attention and listening closely, that little slip can tell you 0:11:30.156 --> 0:11:36.236 something struck for stroke. But old Shep is just the 0:11:36.276 --> 0:11:41.476 beginning for Elvis. The real parapraxis occurs in are You 0:11:41.636 --> 0:11:45.796 Lonesome Tonight? A song originally written in the nineteen twenties 0:11:46.116 --> 0:11:48.156 and which Elvis took to the top of the charts 0:11:48.236 --> 0:11:59.316 just after he came out of the Army. 0:11:59.836 --> 0:12:05.316 Are You Longsina. 0:12:04.956 --> 0:12:05.116 Who? 0:12:05.156 --> 0:12:11.276 As Day zero six, Take two. 0:12:18.596 --> 0:12:21.996 Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music Row in Nashville, 0:12:22.476 --> 0:12:26.756 April fourth, nineteen sixty The recordings from the original session 0:12:27.076 --> 0:12:29.156 now held in the Sony Music Archive. 0:12:30.076 --> 0:12:32.676 Yeah this is there's numerous takes here, so they fall 0:12:32.716 --> 0:12:34.916 apart they make a mistake and what have you? 0:12:35.796 --> 0:12:40.356 John Jackson and Vic Nissini from Sony Me all listening 0:12:40.396 --> 0:12:44.476 together at the legendary Battery Studios in Manhattan where everyone 0:12:44.556 --> 0:12:49.916 from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen recorded Holy Ground. I 0:12:49.996 --> 0:12:52.436 started my quest at the very beginning. 0:12:54.556 --> 0:12:57.436 Is your hot till. 0:12:59.276 --> 0:12:59.556 Share? 0:12:59.676 --> 0:13:00.676 I harm? 0:13:04.476 --> 0:13:05.076 Tony d. 0:13:06.876 --> 0:13:08.036 Are you lonesome? 0:13:17.476 --> 0:13:22.676 Because he's so amadia is he? Uh? When he records that? 0:13:23.036 --> 0:13:24.716 Are the jordan Aires singing along with him? 0:13:24.796 --> 0:13:29.316 Or they're laying that tracked on C liveth Yeah. 0:13:29.356 --> 0:13:32.516 He always preferred to have everyone in one room and 0:13:32.556 --> 0:13:35.036 record live. Oh, even in one room, not in booths 0:13:35.076 --> 0:13:36.076 or no no, no, no no. 0:13:36.116 --> 0:13:36.916 He hated booths. 0:13:37.956 --> 0:13:40.956 Recording the song was not Elvis's idea. It was a 0:13:40.996 --> 0:13:44.196 favorite of the wife of his manager, Tom Parker. In 0:13:44.236 --> 0:13:47.796 the studio, Elvis asked the lights be turned off so 0:13:47.876 --> 0:13:51.716 the room was in darkness. He did five takes. He 0:13:51.756 --> 0:13:52.836 didn't like any of them. 0:13:53.356 --> 0:13:55.356 It was four in the morning when he recorded it, 0:13:55.956 --> 0:13:58.396 so he made everyone get out of the studio go away, 0:13:58.476 --> 0:14:00.916 and then he just you know, did it. And then 0:14:00.956 --> 0:14:03.756 they this is the second take, which they told him 0:14:03.876 --> 0:14:07.156 how the background singers, you know, pee popped because he said, 0:14:07.196 --> 0:14:09.996 just stop the tape, you know I'm on. They said, 0:14:10.076 --> 0:14:11.596 just do it once more because you know, we hit 0:14:11.636 --> 0:14:13.596 a peap pop on there. So the third take ends 0:14:13.636 --> 0:14:14.236 up being the master. 0:14:14.636 --> 0:14:15.196 Oh I see. 0:14:15.596 --> 0:14:17.596 Then he held the label held it back for seven 0:14:17.636 --> 0:14:18.596 eight months because. 0:14:18.396 --> 0:14:19.876 They didn't realize what they hed on their hands. 0:14:19.996 --> 0:14:23.836 Yeah, it was seven months. I think after he recreated 0:14:23.916 --> 0:14:26.876 they finally released it as a single and didn't go 0:14:26.916 --> 0:14:29.796 out that he had done eight songs for Elvis's back 0:14:30.516 --> 0:14:33.316 and this was just like, yeah, just try this. 0:14:33.236 --> 0:14:36.836 One, recorded in the wee hours of the morning in 0:14:36.956 --> 0:14:40.676 darkness as a favor to someone else, a song neither 0:14:40.756 --> 0:14:44.716 Elvis nor his label particularly liked. It's almost like the 0:14:44.716 --> 0:14:47.516 song had a curse on it right from the beginning, 0:14:48.236 --> 0:14:51.316 and from then on Elvis could never quite get it right. 0:14:54.116 --> 0:14:56.236 I talked about this with Michelle Press at the New 0:14:56.316 --> 0:15:00.676 York Psychoanalytics Society. Elvis wasn't typically someone who forgot the 0:15:00.716 --> 0:15:03.796 words to the songs he sang. There's all these examples 0:15:03.796 --> 0:15:05.916 out of his life of him being able to recite, 0:15:05.996 --> 0:15:11.676 to sing from memory, massive amounts of stuff. I'm worried about, 0:15:11.676 --> 0:15:14.676 I'm interested about that. There's a little slip I'm worried about, 0:15:14.676 --> 0:15:19.716 I said, I'm worried about that. I'm interested in that, 0:15:20.036 --> 0:15:23.036 and I'm wondering what the what would you make of that? 0:15:24.076 --> 0:15:28.596 As a psychoanalyst. I try to go on, but of 0:15:28.636 --> 0:15:32.836 course I'm talking to a hardcore Freudian. I meant to 0:15:32.876 --> 0:15:37.116 say I was interested, but what came out was worried. 0:15:37.956 --> 0:15:41.236 I mean, I'm still caught on your slip, obviously thinking what. 0:15:41.276 --> 0:15:42.396 Do you what do you make of it? 0:15:43.236 --> 0:15:46.036 So one thought was whether the slip might be a 0:15:46.156 --> 0:15:51.196 key to something that you're figuring out and puzzling with him, 0:15:51.396 --> 0:15:53.796 because you're right now, you're immersed in him. 0:15:54.876 --> 0:15:58.516 Oh I am. I've been singing this song under my 0:15:58.596 --> 0:16:02.796 breath for months. I can't understand why I've never been 0:16:02.796 --> 0:16:05.396 an Elvis fan. I don't own a single song of his. 0:16:06.196 --> 0:16:07.396 Or am I am? 0:16:07.396 --> 0:16:10.716 I drawn to this story because isn't this story that 0:16:10.756 --> 0:16:14.876 I'm talking to you the great anxiety of anyone in 0:16:14.916 --> 0:16:18.996 a creative field, that moment when you lose control, right 0:16:20.116 --> 0:16:27.876 or the the presentation to the audience is unmasked. I 0:16:27.876 --> 0:16:30.836 want to I want to show you. I take out 0:16:30.876 --> 0:16:34.876 my laptop, pull up YouTube. There's a mountain of Elvis 0:16:34.956 --> 0:16:37.796 on YouTube, one of the last performances of his life. 0:16:38.076 --> 0:16:41.876 It's bananas. I mean, he just it's he's singing a 0:16:41.876 --> 0:16:44.076 song he's singing thousands of times. 0:16:43.716 --> 0:16:44.316 And he just. 0:16:45.916 --> 0:16:47.316 Completely loses control of it. 0:16:48.556 --> 0:16:51.676 I can skip it coming. 0:16:58.196 --> 0:16:59.036 I wonder if. 0:17:00.436 --> 0:17:04.196 Two lungs of a night, you know, if someone said 0:17:05.236 --> 0:17:07.676 the worlds of stays in each play apart. 0:17:09.636 --> 0:17:11.716 Playing in. 0:17:12.396 --> 0:17:16.116 A plus tags Irigel select cleverly. 0:17:17.396 --> 0:17:18.316 I never missed you. 0:17:19.436 --> 0:17:20.916 And it came back to it. 0:17:20.996 --> 0:17:24.756 Forgot the word seem to change. 0:17:25.236 --> 0:17:28.396 When I first saw it it as someone in a 0:17:28.956 --> 0:17:31.476 I mean, I'm not Elvis, but I'm someone in a 0:17:31.516 --> 0:17:35.356 creative field. It terrified me. It's like up on stage 0:17:35.396 --> 0:17:38.516 doing what he's paid to do, and. 0:17:38.556 --> 0:17:42.916 He he just I'm like, well, really, won't during your life. 0:17:45.676 --> 0:17:47.596 Go on living without you? 0:17:48.596 --> 0:17:48.716 Now? 0:17:48.756 --> 0:17:53.116 The stage is bare and I'm sitting there without a 0:17:53.116 --> 0:17:53.476 new hair. 0:17:53.556 --> 0:17:53.996 I don't know. 0:17:57.356 --> 0:17:58.436 If you'll come back to me. 0:18:02.756 --> 0:18:05.916 Every live performance he's ever given of this that we 0:18:05.996 --> 0:18:09.916 have on tape, he mangles the bridge, can't do it right. 0:18:10.396 --> 0:18:12.876 It's he's returning to the song again and again and 0:18:12.916 --> 0:18:15.476 again and again and again and doing the same kind 0:18:15.916 --> 0:18:20.596 in this particular always a bridge so singing party over. 0:18:20.676 --> 0:18:22.116 How many years did this go on? 0:18:22.996 --> 0:18:23.356 Yours? 0:18:25.596 --> 0:18:25.956 Okay? 0:18:26.036 --> 0:18:28.196 In nineteen eighty two, this life and. 0:18:28.236 --> 0:18:30.356 Version was rare in the UK and each number twenty 0:18:30.356 --> 0:18:31.756 five and the British Singles. 0:18:31.676 --> 0:18:35.676 Chart at Battery Studios. I made the Sony guys play 0:18:35.796 --> 0:18:40.156 every version they had. They even have names, Laughing Elvis, 0:18:40.596 --> 0:18:44.196 Crazy Elvis, each one stranger than the one before. 0:18:46.076 --> 0:18:48.036 The World's a Stadius and East must play a part. 0:19:05.916 --> 0:19:09.396 There's sweat and tears streaming down his face. 0:19:15.956 --> 0:19:17.156 And I had no calls to do. 0:19:22.556 --> 0:19:29.636 It goes on like this, on and on a baby. 0:19:30.876 --> 0:19:33.396 Show. Come again. 0:19:34.796 --> 0:19:49.676 Tell me, dear h, that's it man? 0:19:50.356 --> 0:19:50.716 What'll do? 0:19:50.836 --> 0:19:52.356 You don't not a jury? And what I'll do? 0:19:52.476 --> 0:19:53.836 You o? S? 0:20:01.436 --> 0:20:02.676 Have you ever played the song before? 0:20:02.876 --> 0:20:02.996 No? 0:20:03.036 --> 0:20:03.916 I never played it before. 0:20:03.956 --> 0:20:04.236 I didn't. 0:20:04.276 --> 0:20:07.956 It's funny. I played a bunch of chick I played 0:20:07.956 --> 0:20:09.836 a bunch of his stuff. Do you want to flip 0:20:09.836 --> 0:20:12.036 in a standby switch? 0:20:13.236 --> 0:20:16.676 I'm with Jack White at his studio in Nashville Third 0:20:16.716 --> 0:20:19.956 Man Records. Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, one 0:20:19.996 --> 0:20:22.996 of the great rock and rollers of his generation and 0:20:23.076 --> 0:20:26.476 a huge Elvis fan. He's a shrine to Elvis in 0:20:26.476 --> 0:20:31.116 his hallway. Actual shrine. All that's missing is flowers. We 0:20:31.156 --> 0:20:33.836 met in his private office, lots of black and yellow 0:20:33.836 --> 0:20:36.516 and leather and taxidermy. He sat on the couch with 0:20:36.556 --> 0:20:41.756 a guitar. Do you play Do you play Elvis songs 0:20:41.796 --> 0:20:42.836 a concert? 0:20:43.236 --> 0:20:45.556 Sometimes? I do, like a. 0:20:49.396 --> 0:20:49.676 What's that? 0:20:58.996 --> 0:21:00.396 I want you to love me? 0:21:01.316 --> 0:21:01.876 Love me? 0:21:01.956 --> 0:21:06.116 And just dream and just say. 0:21:11.676 --> 0:21:17.236 I was gonna say, don't stop, I'm enjoying it. Anything 0:21:17.276 --> 0:21:18.036 any other ones you do? 0:21:19.116 --> 0:21:19.276 Wait? 0:21:19.356 --> 0:21:21.996 But anyway, why do you why that one? What's it 0:21:21.996 --> 0:21:22.556 about that song? 0:21:23.116 --> 0:21:25.116 I had heard that early from a band called the 0:21:25.156 --> 0:21:27.436 Flat Duo Jets that I really liked, and I didn't 0:21:27.476 --> 0:21:29.956 know it was Elvis. And then when i'd heard the 0:21:29.956 --> 0:21:32.276 Elvis version, I had connected the two, like, oh no, really, 0:21:32.436 --> 0:21:33.716 and I started doing it when. 0:21:33.596 --> 0:21:34.676 I put in coffee houses. 0:21:34.716 --> 0:21:37.956 I started playing that when I was like sixteen, Yeah, 0:21:38.836 --> 0:21:39.636 I goes back. 0:21:39.476 --> 0:21:40.156 Which is funny. 0:21:40.156 --> 0:21:45.436 I eventually heard a story of Robert Plant telling Elvis 0:21:45.436 --> 0:21:47.996 he loved that song when led Zepp and met Elvis, 0:21:48.076 --> 0:21:50.636 and then when they walked out out of the hallway 0:21:50.636 --> 0:21:53.276 that Elvis poked his head out in the hallway and 0:21:53.356 --> 0:21:56.716 sang that song to Robert Plan. They sang it back 0:21:56.716 --> 0:22:00.316 to each other, and you were crying and must have 0:22:00.316 --> 0:22:01.476 been an amazing moment. 0:22:02.836 --> 0:22:06.036 Jack White owns the original acetate pressing of Elvis's first 0:22:06.076 --> 0:22:10.636 recording from nineteen fifty three, My Happiness. After we talked, 0:22:10.716 --> 0:22:12.716 White took me into his vault to show it to me. 0:22:13.156 --> 0:22:15.876 It's priceless. He asked me if I weren't to hold it. 0:22:16.396 --> 0:22:20.116 I was too terrified to say yes. Jack White seemed 0:22:20.156 --> 0:22:22.516 like the right person to see to try and understand 0:22:22.636 --> 0:22:24.996 Elvis's problem. And are you lonesome tonight? 0:22:25.636 --> 0:22:26.276 All right, let me see. 0:22:26.276 --> 0:22:26.916 We're gonna take a crack. 0:22:26.956 --> 0:22:29.036 It might we might have to give a couple whorls. 0:22:29.076 --> 0:22:46.396 What are you a lone song tonight? Do you miss 0:22:46.476 --> 0:22:48.596 me tonight? 0:22:50.276 --> 0:23:00.556 Are you sorry? We drifted a paw? Does your memoir 0:23:01.476 --> 0:23:05.356 strain through a bride song? 0:23:06.276 --> 0:23:13.836 Day? We're not stew and call you sweet hot? 0:23:17.196 --> 0:23:23.476 Do the chair in your partner seamany? 0:23:24.356 --> 0:23:31.276 And bear? Do you geeze? That's a door? Stell and 0:23:31.676 --> 0:23:40.556 pitcher me? Then? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall 0:23:40.596 --> 0:23:47.676 I come back again? Till the deed are your own? 0:23:47.836 --> 0:23:48.116 Song? 0:23:49.356 --> 0:23:49.836 To night? 0:23:53.516 --> 0:23:56.436 That's the first half of the song. The song version 0:23:56.596 --> 0:24:00.356 all questions. A man is wondering whether his lover misses him. 0:24:00.796 --> 0:24:04.076 Then comes the spoken bridge, in which the emotional tables 0:24:04.116 --> 0:24:08.236 are turned and the man leaves himself bare. Are you 0:24:08.316 --> 0:24:11.236 Lonesome Tonight? Has been recorded countless times over the years. 0:24:11.916 --> 0:24:14.676 A lot of performers leave out the bridge because it's 0:24:14.716 --> 0:24:19.596 corny and way too long and hard. Elvis kept it in, 0:24:20.636 --> 0:24:22.436 so does Jack White. 0:24:23.836 --> 0:24:26.796 I wonder if you're a lonesome tonight. 0:24:28.356 --> 0:24:31.516 You know, someone said that the world's a stage and 0:24:31.596 --> 0:24:32.716 each must play a part. 0:24:33.596 --> 0:24:36.956 Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetom. 0:24:37.916 --> 0:24:41.156 That one was where we at. I loved you at 0:24:41.196 --> 0:24:41.956 first glance. 0:24:42.756 --> 0:24:44.476 You read your line so cleverly. 0:24:44.196 --> 0:24:47.196 And never missed a cue. The thing came back too. 0:24:48.476 --> 0:24:49.476 You seem to change. 0:24:49.516 --> 0:24:58.036 You acted strange, and why I've never known, Honey. You 0:24:58.156 --> 0:25:01.796 lied when you said you loved me, and I had 0:25:01.836 --> 0:25:05.876 no cause to doubt you. 0:25:05.876 --> 0:25:09.836 But I'd rather go on hearing your lies and to 0:25:09.916 --> 0:25:17.396 go on living without. Now the stage is bare and 0:25:17.436 --> 0:25:22.316 I was standing there with emptiness all around. If you 0:25:22.476 --> 0:25:23.076 won't come. 0:25:22.956 --> 0:25:23.436 Back to me. 0:25:25.716 --> 0:25:32.356 And maybe bring the crook back, is your heart fill 0:25:32.716 --> 0:25:33.876 Lewis play. 0:25:35.116 --> 0:25:38.356 Shall not come back again? 0:25:39.636 --> 0:25:45.436 To medd Loan song to night? 0:25:48.796 --> 0:25:54.156 Whoa wait You you you enjoyed that. 0:25:55.916 --> 0:25:58.196 I did it gets it gets uh, there's some nice 0:25:58.236 --> 0:25:59.716 parts where it gets the. 0:26:00.956 --> 0:26:04.796 You can see uh playing that live now, I just 0:26:04.836 --> 0:26:06.356 did that, like well, we just did that. 0:26:06.636 --> 0:26:10.836 I played it once yesterday reading this, but now playing 0:26:10.916 --> 0:26:11.196 like that, I. 0:26:11.196 --> 0:26:13.516 Could see, wow, live you could really that really could 0:26:13.556 --> 0:26:14.116 be to be. 0:26:14.116 --> 0:26:17.756 A really emotional song. So I didn't really think about 0:26:17.756 --> 0:26:18.596 it until just then. 0:26:19.916 --> 0:26:21.396 What led you to think that just now? 0:26:21.556 --> 0:26:24.396 Because it feels like, well, it's in a mine, it's 0:26:24.436 --> 0:26:26.756 a lot of minor chords, so that that that's already 0:26:26.756 --> 0:26:29.156 gets you in that melancholy vibe, but it has it 0:26:29.196 --> 0:26:34.836 has that. What just occurred to me now is he 0:26:34.836 --> 0:26:37.916 doesn't he doesn't. He doesn't really care that if she's lonesome, 0:26:38.396 --> 0:26:41.876 he's lonesome, that the singer is lonesome. And it's a 0:26:41.916 --> 0:26:45.076 it's a mcguffin to pretend like I'm worried about you? 0:26:45.996 --> 0:26:47.116 Are you lonesome tonight? 0:26:47.196 --> 0:26:47.396 You know? 0:26:48.036 --> 0:26:50.676