Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones, hugely popular, influential and sometimes controversialist. I'm Britney Spanis.
Speaker 2: And I'm Rob Sheffield, and we're here to shed light
Speaker 2: on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes
Speaker 2: them so great.
Speaker 1: So today we have a great song that kind of
Speaker 1: exemplifies some of the changes that have happened between the
Speaker 1: original list and the new one. We'll be discussing Hown
Speaker 1: Dog by Big Mamma Thornton. And this song was not
Speaker 1: on the original list. The version that was on the
Speaker 1: original list was Elvis Presley's version, the version that a
Speaker 1: lot of people may be most familiar with or heard first,
Speaker 1: and it ranked it number nineteen on the original list,
Speaker 1: and it's the highest ranking song to not appear on
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one list at all. And now we
Speaker 1: have Big Mamma Thornton's the nineteen fifty three recording of
Speaker 1: it clocks in at number three eighteen for its debut
Speaker 1: on the five hundred Greatest Songs. So this is a
Speaker 1: change that's pretty reflective of a lot of public sentiment
Speaker 1: around Elvis, very specifically. Right, there's a lot of changes
Speaker 1: in our own our experience of Elvis as listeners, our
Speaker 1: experience of Elvis a as a icon has changed dramatically
Speaker 1: since the list first came out, and I think by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Prior to, of course, the two movies
Speaker 1: made about his life, We've come Back and come out
Speaker 1: in recent years, have changed public perception in different ways.
Speaker 1: The kind of the legacy of Elvis was dwindling, and
Speaker 1: I think people just weren't as interested in the songs
Speaker 1: that he popularized that were made originally by black artists
Speaker 1: and found those versions to be better and different.
Speaker 2: The twenty twenty list, the fifties pioneers got lost on
Speaker 2: that list. They didn't have a lot of expertise or
Speaker 2: a lot of enthusiasm for music from the fifties, So
Speaker 2: so many of the fifties pioneers who were huge on
Speaker 2: the previous list really got slept on for the later version.
Speaker 2: People like Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley
Speaker 2: and Sam Cook, they all had a lot less presence
Speaker 2: on the new one, and for whatever reason that the
Speaker 2: voters didn't know or care much about that particular era
Speaker 2: of music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I feel like I didn't really even in
Speaker 1: my ballot, and I was very much focused on like
Speaker 1: some of the newer songs or like pop and dance
Speaker 1: songs that came out prior to even the original list
Speaker 1: that didn't make it. But yeah, I feel like I
Speaker 1: didn't really think too much. I guess I sort of
Speaker 1: assumed that those kind of songs that have always been
Speaker 1: sort of the ground zero of the canon and would
Speaker 1: make it. But yeah, it's also like pretty shocking that
Speaker 1: a lot of them sort of weren't a big of
Speaker 1: a part of people's own ballads and thinkings of what
Speaker 1: are the greatest songs of all time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting when you think of like a
Speaker 2: song as classic as big example of long Taul Sally,
Speaker 2: the classic song by Little Richard that was number fifty
Speaker 2: five on the previous version of the list, it didn't
Speaker 2: even make the list this time. Yeah, there are lots
Speaker 2: of songs that were in the top one hundred that
Speaker 2: completely dropped off the list, songs that are really foundational
Speaker 2: for pop music ever since, and those in general got
Speaker 2: slept on and the Elvis songs are definitely part of
Speaker 2: that that. Ray Charles songs are definitely part of that.
Speaker 2: It's just a diminished interest for these voters in that period.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean even the fact that the big Mama
Speaker 1: Thorton version comes in so low in coming at three
Speaker 1: eighteen is pre striking that it's not even in the
Speaker 1: top one hundred or doesn't make it there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's hardly any Doop on the list.
Speaker 2: Earth Angel isn't on the list, which is kind of
Speaker 2: mind blowing when you think of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I wonder why or when that happened. I
Speaker 1: guess people's interest in sort of sixties rock and roll
Speaker 1: sort of got lost. I feel like there's so much
Speaker 1: of a nostalgia for it. When I was younger thinking
Speaker 1: about just kind of the popularity of rockabilly and even
Speaker 1: just the look of kind of like fifties kind of
Speaker 1: greaser style was so big, with a lot of artists
Speaker 1: who were emulating that, even if they weren't necessarily making
Speaker 1: music that sounded like that. But I feel like there
Speaker 1: hasn't been as many people kind of bringing in that legacy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild, how I think, for a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff from that period is so much great wild
Speaker 2: music from that period that to a large exment was
Speaker 2: out of print and unfindable. Unless you are a hardcore
Speaker 2: collector for many, many years. Yeah, So I think it's
Speaker 2: a cyclical thing where just the sheer abundance of great
Speaker 2: pop music, great R and B, great do wop, great
Speaker 2: rock and roll from that period. It comes and goes,
Speaker 2: but it always circles back around because it's just so intense. Certainly,
Speaker 2: I think Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Presley,
Speaker 2: Sam Cook. These are artists who their innovations still make
Speaker 2: them a presence in pop music. But so many of
Speaker 2: the more forgotten pioneers from that period, like Big Mama
Speaker 2: Thornton or Roy Brown or Wenoni Harris, I feel like
Speaker 2: they're her biggest public discovery has yet to come.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like we're definitely overdue, and I think
Speaker 1: is still kind of on the way to that. Especially
Speaker 1: the great sort of blues women. I think are very
Speaker 1: much coming into a kind of public reckoning with the
Speaker 1: fact that their memories in their careers are so much
Speaker 1: lost to history. And I mean with Big Mama Thornton's version,
Speaker 1: she had the original take on Leeburn Stoler's song. They
Speaker 1: wrote it because they were introduced to her by Johnny Otis,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to make something that was just as
Speaker 1: gruff as she was that really emulated a lot of
Speaker 1: who she was as a present. She was like this
Speaker 1: really kind of intense kind of person and who had
Speaker 1: this like very like sexual stage performance, who was very
Speaker 1: gender nonconforming in a lot of ways. She didn't really
Speaker 1: adhere to a lot of what people expected of women
Speaker 1: in music at the time, especially black women in music.
Speaker 1: And there's so much to her that was just like powerful.
Speaker 1: And they want to song that she could really growl on,
Speaker 1: which I love, And I was like reading a story
Speaker 1: that she wasn't performing it that way at first on
Speaker 1: the recording, and so they were kind of like scared
Speaker 1: to tell her to do it more like this way
Speaker 1: that they had intended the song to be sung, So
Speaker 1: one of them had to like do an imitation of
Speaker 1: it to like get her to understand that. They're like,
Speaker 1: we want you to growl more. We want you to
Speaker 1: like not do like the like kind of like pretty
Speaker 1: voice like you know, performance on it, which I love
Speaker 1: that they kind of had to to do their own
Speaker 1: kind of take on it, which I want to hear,
Speaker 1: like Leehburn Stoller's kind of imitation of Big Mama Thornton
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 2: It was funny, and she had so many great songs
Speaker 2: that are ripe for rediscovery. And I think once people hear,
Speaker 2: you know, Willie May's Blues or just Can't help Myself,
Speaker 2: people are going to hear there's a lot more to
Speaker 2: Willie May Thornton, Big Mama Thornton than they previously realized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and there's such like a clear through
Speaker 1: line of I mean, like even just beyond of course
Speaker 1: R and B to rock and roll, and like Hot
Speaker 1: Dog being so much the bridge between black R and
Speaker 1: B and early rock and roll before Romans, but just
Speaker 1: like thinking of the history of black women in music
Speaker 1: and how there's like such a through line even from
Speaker 1: Big Mama Thornton to you know, a lot of like
Speaker 1: motown girl groups to like seventies kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I think of like Betty Davis and of Donna Summer
Speaker 1: and kind of like the sexuality that they really just
Speaker 1: like emanated in their songs and their vocals and were
Speaker 1: able to do so seamlessly, and kind of the rawness
Speaker 1: of Tina Turner of course is so much a part
Speaker 1: of that. And you get to someone like Beyonce, who
Speaker 1: has always really honored a lot of that history, and
Speaker 1: of course she has like when the levee breaks, don't
Speaker 1: hurt yourself on Lemonade and kind of helps like give
Speaker 1: a resurgence in that way to the great blues women
Speaker 1: who came before her and kind of inspired what it
Speaker 1: means to be a black woman performing and kind of
Speaker 1: freed up what that means for a lot of artists.
Speaker 1: Is just so incredible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, anybody who hasn't read Britney's essay on that particular
Speaker 2: Beyonce song should drop everything you're doing and read it.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite things written about not just Beyonce,
Speaker 2: but about the entire long history of pop music. This
Speaker 2: is Beyonce taking a song that everybody is familiar with
Speaker 2: from the more recent versions when the Levee Breaks, and
Speaker 2: connecting it to the whole history of Memphis Mini and
Speaker 2: that Jack White, who definitely knows this history, is like
Speaker 2: very much involved in this song. Everything about that song
Speaker 2: is just it's just mind blowing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you know, for the Boz Luhrman
Speaker 1: Elvis movie, of course, there's a Doosha Cat version of
Speaker 1: hound Dog which samples very prominently Big Mama Thornton's version.
Speaker 1: I mean so, I mean, especially for this type of
Speaker 1: like shiny biopic about Elvis, to kind of make sure
Speaker 1: to shine a light on her and have this big
Speaker 1: hit single with it. I think for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: even after the list has come out, you know, has
Speaker 1: allowed them to learn more about Big Mama Thornton, to
Speaker 1: kind of be exposed to her performance of it, because
Speaker 1: you can hear so much of that in music today
Speaker 1: and you can still hear that. I mean, there is
Speaker 1: nothing more for a lot of these blues women, there
Speaker 1: was nothing more punk rock or transgressive or rock and
Speaker 1: roll than who they were. Like, they were definitely not
Speaker 1: adhering to any roles that were set for them and
Speaker 1: any roles of performance, of being an artist and of
Speaker 1: just what was expected of them, and that's like kind
Speaker 1: of the purest form of rock and roll energy and
Speaker 1: performance and all of that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, it's so wild. How as soon as you know,
Speaker 2: hound Dog comes out in fifty two, it's a massive hit.
Speaker 2: And one of the amazing things is that from the
Speaker 2: very beginning people are rewriting this song. Everybody who hears
Speaker 2: this wants to do their own version, wants to add
Speaker 2: their own thing to the story. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: classic hip hop example like Roxanne Roxanne, whereas song just
Speaker 2: transforms because so many people are doing different versions of
Speaker 2: the story from different angles. And so right from the
Speaker 2: beginning with Houndog you have so many artists, artists who
Speaker 2: are name artists, or artists who are obscure artists, artists
Speaker 2: from every genre, every part of the country, but they're
Speaker 2: doing their answer song to Hounddog And it's wild that
Speaker 2: people fixate on the Big Mama Thornton version and the
Speaker 2: Elvis version, and there's so much more to this story
Speaker 2: that You've got Rufus Thomas, who's already a legend in
Speaker 2: Memphis at this point, doing bear Cat, which is an
Speaker 2: explicit answer song Sun Records, and Sam Phillips thought he
Speaker 2: was going to take the writing credit. Lieber and Stoller
Speaker 2: weren't going to let that happen. Roy Brown doing his
Speaker 2: great you know, mister hound Doggs comes to town like
Speaker 2: and these are artists who were around before Big Mama Thornton,
Speaker 2: but they're inspired by her song. They want to take
Speaker 2: it somewhere new. And it was so wild that for
Speaker 2: Leeburn Stoller, who wrote this, like you said, specifically for
Speaker 2: Willie May Thornton, that they had no way of knowing
Speaker 2: that this song was about to begin, this whole story
Speaker 2: with all these different people doing all these different versions
Speaker 2: of it, and that it became sort of a cross cultural,
Speaker 2: cross generational dialogue.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I think like getting back to like
Speaker 1: the the roots of the song and gain to sort
Speaker 1: of i know, people learning more about these histories and
Speaker 1: sort of the kind of like little like Micro's sonic
Speaker 1: universes that these kind of created, you know, even with
Speaker 1: the song. And I mean, this is just like a
Speaker 1: problem in the music industry that goes well beyond Hound
Speaker 1: Dog and Big Mama Thornton. And of course there was
Speaker 1: a lot of legal issues over these songs and a
Speaker 1: lot of lawsuits that kind of went between Lee Burne
Speaker 1: Stolen a lot of these artists and other writers who
Speaker 1: were kind of doing different takes on it. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I was reading how Big Mama Thornton only made five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars on her version, which was a big hit
Speaker 1: when it came out. Of course, like Elvis's version a
Speaker 1: few years later, would end up, you know, because he's
Speaker 1: a white man doing this song, and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's really attracted to him and all this other stuff
Speaker 1: that kind of came with his successive Houndog A lot
Speaker 1: of her history got very quickly washed away in that
Speaker 1: and so it's really insane to think about the fact
Speaker 1: that she I mean, I guess not insane thinking about
Speaker 1: the music industry, but like you know, she made five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars was it on the song?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, a huge turning point in the nineties when
Speaker 2: the CD reissue boom and there's a compilation they call
Speaker 2: me Big Mama, and that's the early nineties, and that
Speaker 2: was the first time that there was an album CD
Speaker 2: that was Big Mama Thornton that people could go into
Speaker 2: the store and buy. Because everybody knew the story that
Speaker 2: there was this version of Hounddog. People didn't know about
Speaker 2: all the different versions at that point because history had
Speaker 2: been so simplified. But this is the first time that
Speaker 2: people could actually hear this Big Mama Thornton version that
Speaker 2: they heard so much about. It was funny that three
Speaker 2: things are apparent right away. First, it's phenomenal the guitar.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we could know Pete guitar Lewis is
Speaker 2: such a monster in this song. It sounds nothing like
Speaker 2: the Elvis version, Completely different songs, nothing in common except
Speaker 2: for the first line and the title, and they're completely
Speaker 2: different lyrics, completely different chords, structure, beat, everything. But also
Speaker 2: Big Mama Thornton had so many other songs and that
Speaker 2: this is an even her best song, just Can't Help
Speaker 2: Myself is even better Big Mama Thornton's song Willie May's Blues,
Speaker 2: which is in which she wrote, you know, she wrote
Speaker 2: like plenty of her own material. Yeah, And of course
Speaker 2: she wrote the song that became very famous for Janis
Speaker 2: Joblin career making song, Beall and Chain, and that was
Speaker 2: a song that she wrote and recorded very late in
Speaker 2: her career that you know, became a legendary song. But
Speaker 2: it's wild that there's so much to Big Mama Thornton's
Speaker 2: story way beyond this song, and that this song is
Speaker 2: so much more than just a back and forth between
Speaker 2: Big Mama Thornton and Elvis. It's just fascinating to see
Speaker 2: how much music that she was a part of, in
Speaker 2: the whole genres that she was a part of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean even just like listening to the recording now,
Speaker 1: I mean she just sounds like so that's just like
Speaker 1: such a great vocal performance, like such a perfect vocal
Speaker 1: performance happening on like I mean, all of her music,
Speaker 1: but I mean with this one, it's just so funny
Speaker 1: to like listen to her version and then like you know,
Speaker 1: the Frankie Bell and the Bell Boys and like Elvis
Speaker 1: Presley versions, and it's like her, like her vocals on
Speaker 1: it are just like so explosive and so just kind
Speaker 1: of like really get under your skin. The way that
Speaker 1: she can growl on a song. It's just so perfect.
Speaker 2: It's really amazing. But when she's doing the column response
Speaker 2: between her voice and Pete guitar Lewis's guitar, it's really outstanding.
Speaker 2: And even in the context of what people were doing
Speaker 2: in R and B in the early fifties, you could
Speaker 2: definitely see why this song was like such a massive
Speaker 2: R and B hit nationally, which was rare for R
Speaker 2: and B at that time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I also I had forgotten about the ball
Speaker 1: and Chain Chance Joplin connection for the longest.
Speaker 2: It's wild. Yeah, it's the Bay Area, it's the sixties
Speaker 2: and Jennis Joplin and her friends in the band Big
Speaker 2: Brother they are going to see Big Mama Thornton. Of course,
Speaker 2: she's a legendary singer at this point, like she's not rich,
Speaker 2: but like people know her and know her work. And
Speaker 2: she does this song Ball and Chain that she wrote
Speaker 2: and Jennis Choplin like goes over and talks to her
Speaker 2: and she's like, where did that song come from? Like
Speaker 2: and yeah, mam Threne said, you know, like just wrote
Speaker 2: it and that became the career making song. That's a
Speaker 2: song that Janis Joplin does at the Monterey Pop Festival
Speaker 2: that everybody who's there is like, who the hell is this?
Speaker 2: And you see that footage in the Monterey Pop movie
Speaker 2: and it completely mind blowing performance. The great scene where
Speaker 2: cass Elliott is watching and you just see cass Elliot
Speaker 2: and the crowd going wow. You know so much comes
Speaker 2: from just that amazing performance of that amazing song. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're very, very overdue for like a
Speaker 1: big Mama Thornton movie, like a great book, like it's
Speaker 1: something about her, Like I feel like people are gonna
Speaker 1: I feel like it's gonna come.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm curious, like what will happen in I mean,
Speaker 1: it's inevitable that there will be a redux of the
Speaker 1: of the list in the future and of course there's
Speaker 1: you know, the resurgence that Elvis is having in a
Speaker 1: more like aesthetic way right now, Like that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: about his music, but like very much about the look
Speaker 1: and kind of the the you know, problematic love story
Speaker 1: with Priscilla and like the tragedy of the family and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And I'm curious kind of like, i mean,
Speaker 1: all these things are so cyclical, right Like it's like
Speaker 1: everything kind of comes back in waves that I'm wondering
Speaker 1: like when, if, and if like there will be this
Speaker 1: kind of fifties resurgence of like this style of music.
Speaker 1: I mean thinking even just like of course the nineties
Speaker 1: there is like Buddy Holly by Weezer, and then thinking
Speaker 1: even going into the early two thousands, which I love
Speaker 1: that Jacob already brought this up in his interviews the
Speaker 1: about Priscilla where he was like his his encounter with
Speaker 1: Elvis was through Lee Lo and Stitch and like Stitch
Speaker 1: stressing out of Elvis, like these like kind of weird
Speaker 1: moments that brought all that back. Like I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: that if the product of this Elvis resurgence is kind
Speaker 1: of naturally leading into that maybe or it stops with
Speaker 1: Elvis or.
Speaker 2: I think it doesn't stop with Elvis and it continues. Honestly,
Speaker 2: people still, I mean, people are just now discovering Big
Speaker 2: Mama Thornton. I feel like they will discover Roy Brown.
Speaker 2: I know I'm talking about Roy Brown a lot. I'm
Speaker 2: a huge fan. Love Don't Love Nobody is just to me.
Speaker 2: That's a song that you hear. That you hear Little
Speaker 2: Willie John, you hear Wenny Harris, you hear Nellie Lutcher.
Speaker 2: There are so many amazing voices from this period that
Speaker 2: are just still right to be rediscovered or discovered for
Speaker 2: the first time. Yeah, And I feel like hopefully the
Speaker 2: Big Mama Thornton, that the resurgence of interest in her
Speaker 2: will just people will keep going with that amazing period
Speaker 2: of late forties early fifties R and B.
Speaker 1: And next up, we're gonna have Angie Martosio talk about
Speaker 1: hound Dog with us a little bit. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Angie for joining us to talk about hon Dog today.
Speaker 1: Curious sort of when you first heard any version of
Speaker 1: the song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's called Grease. It's a really good film. You
Speaker 3: should like catch it out sometime. Also, just want to
Speaker 3: point out I was a kid watching that, so I
Speaker 3: didn't know that it was like filmed later. I thought
Speaker 3: it was like in the fifties, so I didn't understand
Speaker 3: that sometimes a movie is like set at a certain
Speaker 3: time at all. So to me, I was like John
Speaker 3: Travolda's been around for a while, he had this movie.
Speaker 3: He was in the fifties, Like what's going on? But anyway,
Speaker 3: hearing that song at that time was definitely my introduction,
Speaker 3: and I would say, you know, I'm not a diehard
Speaker 3: Elvis fan, and it's one of the songs that I'm
Speaker 3: not sick of. It's awesome, it's great. I never get
Speaker 3: tired of it.
Speaker 1: And did you hear the big Mama Thornton version much
Speaker 1: later or with it much later?
Speaker 3: Which is crazy? You know, that was like a landmark
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty three hit, and it was such a big
Speaker 3: deal at the time, and it makes you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not surprised with our treatment of how things were then
Speaker 3: that it's just completely forgotten. But I am really glad
Speaker 3: about the last like five years or so, and that
Speaker 3: it's come back and that it was on our list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the writers were so young when they worked
Speaker 1: on it. I didn't realize they're nineteen when they wrote it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Leeber and Stoller were like, they're these two kids
Speaker 3: in their early twenties. They're Jewish music nerds. They're obsessed
Speaker 3: with black culture and it's so insane to me, Like
Speaker 3: the amount of like drama and history that happens with
Speaker 3: Hounddog is so crazy, and I think they're a huge
Speaker 3: part of it, and they're often overlooked and not discussed.
Speaker 3: And yeah, they wrote that song. Yeah, and they did
Speaker 3: not like Elvis's version at first. Yeah, which is so crazy,
Speaker 3: they said, was the line like it doesn't have the
Speaker 3: groove that Big Mama Thornton.
Speaker 2: Had, which is and the rest of their lives complaining
Speaker 2: about it. Yess very funny how they were always outraged
Speaker 2: that this song that was allegedly there was so famous
Speaker 2: for Elvis in a totally different version.
Speaker 3: The unsung hero this whole story is Freddy Bell, who
Speaker 3: sadly even said, like, I hope my career is not
Speaker 3: some up by like giving Elvis hound Dog, Which is
Speaker 3: so sad that Elvis went to Vegas for the first
Speaker 3: time saw them perform that version, the rabid version I
Speaker 3: call it, and he's that's the version that he took
Speaker 3: so it's so crazy to me that now it's boiled
Speaker 3: down between like Elvis and Big Mama against each other,
Speaker 3: when it was never like that to begin with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I mean even just so, as Rob
Speaker 1: and I discussed earlier in the episode, the history of
Speaker 1: hound Dog and the fact that on the five hundred
Speaker 1: Great Songs List, of course it is the highest ranking
Speaker 1: song from the two thousand and four list to disappear
Speaker 1: from the twenty twenty one list, and of course we
Speaker 1: have Big Mom and Thornton's version on the newer list,
Speaker 1: and even just the history of how kind of public
Speaker 1: sentiment about Elvis has changed so much over I mean
Speaker 1: over our kind of like from our childhoods to now,
Speaker 1: and like from like even the last two years of
Speaker 1: Elvis have changed so much. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: fascinating to think about how the ebbs and flows have
Speaker 1: existed of Elvis as like the king of rock and
Speaker 1: roll and what that means and kind of whether that
Speaker 1: stands still and like how how that's completely changed even
Speaker 1: before this.
Speaker 3: List, And it does post the question right of like
Speaker 3: future lists, like will that Elvis version come back on
Speaker 3: the list? Like I think about that too. With the
Speaker 3: fact that he's gaining such a huge fan base from children.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely bonkers to me how huge he's become. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the movies were a big deal and part of that,
Speaker 3: but it's also just the fact that he's, sorry to
Speaker 3: put it so bluntly, like Elvis is cool now and
Speaker 3: he was not that cool like ten years ago.
Speaker 1: There's a great piece that I remember David Brown Arcola,
Speaker 1: David Brown wrote about Elvis's estate trying to get him
Speaker 1: to be relevant again or to keep that legacy going.
Speaker 1: No one wanted to engage with Elvis. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of younger fans obviously found him gross and Skivie rightfully
Speaker 1: for marrying a teenager, and he properated a lot of
Speaker 1: black culture and like a lot of black artists were
Speaker 1: lost in the process of him becoming really famous. And
Speaker 1: I think there was a lot of of that sort
Speaker 1: of disdain for him, and so it's really fascinating how
Speaker 1: that still exists, Like that conversation is ongoing. But he
Speaker 1: also there's so many people that are really really young
Speaker 1: people who love him because of this movie, or like
Speaker 1: love the lore of Elvis or the aesthetic of Elvis,
Speaker 1: because of both this movie and the Sofia Coppola Priscilla,
Speaker 1: which are again very like high aesthetic directors kind of
Speaker 1: doing takes on Elvis.
Speaker 2: But it's wild that, like you were saying, that this
Speaker 2: story keeps changing, keeps evolving. Every generation, every fan base,
Speaker 2: every culture, every new wave of Elvis fans rediscovers the
Speaker 2: Elvis universe and has a new Elvis of their own.
Speaker 2: It's really amazing how many, how everybody's got their own
Speaker 2: different Elvis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, Priscilla came out and
Speaker 3: it was a little bit how is this going to
Speaker 3: be perceived, you know, especially competing with Elvis the movie,
Speaker 3: and I thought that was kind of a polite that
Speaker 3: I could have been a lot worse. I left the
Speaker 3: movie loving it. Obviously, I love Sophia Coppola. I as
Speaker 3: someone who's read the book Priscilla, it's very different, and
Speaker 3: I think it was a pretty polite. Let's say, it
Speaker 3: could have been a lot worse.
Speaker 1: And it seems like it's also like a sort of
Speaker 1: stylistic thing. Obviously, like a lot of people like love
Speaker 1: that kind of look that he had and the look
Speaker 1: that Priscilla had, like and you know, that kind of
Speaker 1: comes with it the music. I'm kind of intrigued by
Speaker 1: how that will shake out with it because there was
Speaker 1: sort of a new interest in Big Mama Thornton's version
Speaker 1: because of the Doja Cat song that used that sample
Speaker 1: Big Mamma Thorton's original version of of hound Dog and
Speaker 1: that was part of the soundtrack that was a huge hit.
Speaker 1: So that kind of, you know, thankfully, brought a lot
Speaker 1: more light to her and too kind of like the
Speaker 1: history of the song. And of course she plays a
Speaker 1: part in the movie as well. So I'm kind of
Speaker 1: curious because I wonder if the songs will have that
Speaker 1: life again, or if this will change the list once more.
Speaker 1: I wonder if in like ten years, you know, and
Speaker 1: we have a batch of younger critics and writers and
Speaker 1: people who you know, loved this these movies or found
Speaker 1: them fascinating that way will change it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I absolutely can't wait to hear. And the last
Speaker 3: thing I want to add is just that Lana del
Speaker 3: Rey was right the whole time, you know, like that
Speaker 3: Priscilla hairstyle is great and it's taken people years to
Speaker 3: catch up with her.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot we need to catch up
Speaker 1: on with with Lanna.
Speaker 2: That's very true.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Angie for me, Thank you always.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Speaker 1: Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by Me, Britney Spanos.
Speaker 2: And Rob Sheffield, Executive.
Speaker 1: Produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and
Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision by Eric Zeiler.
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching, and thanks for listening.