I learned that from listening to Rob Stoner (who was the Rolling Thunder Revue bass player and bandleader) on the "Is It Rolling, Bob?" podcast, here.
I'm thinking about that story this morning, because Elvis's grandson killed himself.
Ben [Keough] has kept a low profile throughout the years, but the one thing he's well-known for is looking almost identical to his famous grandfather, The King himself. Lisa addressed the similarity, saying ... "Ben does look so much like Elvis. He was at the Opry and was the quiet storm behind the stage.... Everybody turned around and looked when he was over there. Everybody was grabbing him for a photo because it is just uncanny."Ben was 27. Elvis was 42 when he died in 1977. If Elvis had taken the prompt from Bob Dylan and recorded "Forever Young" when it was offered to him, that would have happened in 1973.
May you have a strong foundationWhy didn't Elvis want to sing that? If he had sung it, and we'd all heard it from Elvis first, Elvis and not Dylan, the world would have been entirely different all these years, I imagine. Elvis would not have died when he did. We would not be reading of the grandson's death today.
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Elvis only recorded one Bob Dylan song, and he didn't get it straight from Dylan. He heard it from Odetta...
... and he sang it like she did:
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time/Then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all...
Both songs — "Forever Young" and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" — are about living a long time. "Forever Young" sees long life as joyful and immensely desirable. In "Tomorrow Is a Long Time," the longness of life makes loneliness painful. Elvis makes it feel especially sad (and sweet). Here's Dylan...
He sings: "If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time/Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all." That's the only you in the song (official lyrics here). Everything else is I: "I can’t see my reflection in the waters/I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain/I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps/Or can’t remember the sound of my own name."
The pronoun change is significant. Bob wants reunion with "my own true love," and I'm guessing she's the "you," who only feels the pain of lonesomeness because life goes on for so long. I'm going to embrace this interpretation: The singer feels lonesome all the time, in the moment, without his loved one, and she doesn't understand that kind of loneliness. She only sees loneliness in the grand sweep of an entire lifetime. She is off on the "endless highway," the "crooked trail," and she can't understand how much he wants her now, in the present, because when she thinks of a short moment in time, lonesome means nothing at all.
If you change that one "you" to "me," then the temptation to early death arises. Tomorrow doesn't have to be a long time, and therefore lonesome could mean nothing.
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62 comments:
Can’t trust those Tupelo, Mississippi boys.
I have to give first place to Rod Stewart and the Faces.
"The world would have been different?" Well, technically, I guess.
So, what happened near/after 1973 that would have changed?
55mph speed limit? Nixon turns over Watergate tapes? The SLA doesn't kidnap Patty Hearst? The Soviets hold onto Solzhenitsyn?
I remember when music affected me very much. Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" (whcih I heard in 1973) echos to this day.
-XC
I heard Dolly tell the story of I'll Always Love You. She said Elvis wanted to record the song, but would not do it unless he owned the rights. She refused to sell the rights. Elvis did not record the song.
If he had sung it, and we'd all heard it from Elvis first, Elvis and not Dylan, the world would have be entirely different all these years, I imagine. Elvis would not have died when he did. We would not be reading of the grandson's death today.
I'm skeptical that Elvis choosing to sing that particualr song would have changed the course of his life and all our lives. That seems a bit too pretentious, even for Dylan. It's certainly possible. After all, we are talking about Elvis and Dylan, who could inarguably be considered two of the most influential pop culture figures of the past 70 years or so. But it could just easily be just another good song that's well recieved but not that impactful in the grander sense.
the world would have be entirely different all these years, I imagine
You assert that if Elvis had recorded a song by Robert Zimmerman the world would have been entirely different?
Meade, please restrict the brownie purchases and hide her bong. It's time to touch down.
Scientology is racking up the deaths this week aren't they.
The word "lonesome" is very rustic and folky sounding these days. You rarely hear it in anything contemporary. I'm not sure what it is about the word that makes it so evidently unappealing to modern ears, maybe the "some" part?
I have just now become acquainted with the music of Odetta Holmes. I have a new definition for Americana.
Maybe Colonel Tom filtered the request out before it got to the King
I have the Joan Baez version of Forever Young on the CD Baez sings Dylan.
Her version is so perfect I don't see a need for any other. Including Dylan.
True of most of what she sings, generally.
John Henry
Never heard of the grandson until the news of his death. Went online to check out photos as everyone is talking about him being an exact replica of Elvis. Not really. There is a resemblance but that's about all. Elvis was much better looking.
I didn't know Dylan was the writer...I was only familiar with the Rod Stewart version as I think it's been used in a ton of TV ads.
The other famous song of the same name is by Alphaville.
https://youtu.be/oNjQXmoxiQ8
Madashell
I have some Odetta albums from the 60s. No record player though.
Never knew she had a last name.
John Henry
I never understood the appeal of Elvis. Kind of liked him in the 50s and 60s but grew out of it.
I was in Memphis 10 or so years ago and it was some sort of special anniversary. There was talk he would come back that weekend.
I was in a store on Beale street buying some schlock for the kids. A random customer asked me if I was an Elvis fan. I said something neutral like "he's OK"
She completely went off on me. I could have said her daughter was ugly and deserved to die and probably would have gotten less excitement.
John Henry
What am I missing about Don't Think Twice, It's All Right?
So, what happened near/after 1973 that would have changed?
Well, OBVIOUSLY; people would have Completely Ignored some stupid burglary;
and instead RALLIED behind Both the President, AND the South Vietnamese people
People would have Realized that the Christmas Bombings had WON THE WAR, and would have forced Congress to support the retaliation when the PAVN/VC resumed offensive operations 1973
All because of a song All because of a song
I remember when Elvis' great "Burning Love" single came out, and I thought maybe we'd get a terrific album to along with it, and what we got was "Elvis Sings Burning Love' & Hits from His Movies Volume 2." The hits from his movies were things like "No More" from 'Blue Hawaii' (did not chart in the US) and "Santa Lucia" from 'Viva Las Vegas' (not released as a single anywhere as far as I can tell). This was 1972, just before Bob sent him "Forever Young." "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" would've been good, too. A couple months before the 'Hits from His Movies Volume 2' abomination, Elvis released "Elvis Now," with an excruciating version of "Hey Jude" and covers of "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and "Early Morning Rain" that are, if not inspired, at least listenable. So he wasn't actively opposed to recording decent new material. Maybe the Colonel just didn't dig Dylan.
Sometimes I feel lucky that we've got the Colonel to blame for all of Elvis terrible decisions. Except the decision not to fire the Colonel.
A perfect Althouse post.
I've heard and seen Odetta a lot, back in the old days; always liked her. We of course all know that she had a last name -- just never thought about it. This is the first time I've ever seen "Odetta *Holmes*." It just does not sound right as I look at her picture.
...Neither does Dylan's awful rendition of TIALT in that live video. Yech! Hardly unusual for his live performances, though.
Think Presley's "Always On My Mind" covered that territory beautifully.
Nonapod: I'm skeptical that Elvis choosing to sing that particualr song would have changed the course of his life and all our lives. That seems a bit too pretentious, even for Dylan. It's certainly possible. After all, we are talking about Elvis and Dylan, who could inarguably be considered two of the most influential pop culture figures of the past 70 years or so. But it could just easily be just another good song that's well recieved but not that impactful in the grander sense.
We'll never know. But imagine Elvis joining the Rolling Thunder Revue for a handful of dates. Imagine a mid-seventies Elvis album produced by T-Bone Burnett. Imagine Elvis yanked away from parasites and sycophants, even for a few months. I don't know that the whole world tilts on its axis, but there's a reasonable chance he doesn't drop dead on a toilet in 1977.
Can't hear Forever Young and not think of Rod Stewart.
My partner met a number of stars in the mid 1970s through the early 1980s in Las Vegas. She worked her way through college in a very visible position, and then married the executive banquet chefs of one of the premier hotels. Ann Margaret was a raging bitch. Red Fox was foul. Michael Jackson’s entourage were violent black criminals, etc. Two were very positive. She was decently close to Bill Cosby and his family, and believes to this day that no one as ever raped by him. If they had sex with him, they wanted it. She saw it offered him routinely, and he always ignored it. Some was pretty blatant.
The other one though was Elvis. He saw her working in the hotel, and offered her two front row seats to his performance that night. Even her father would have loved to have gone with her that night. He and his brother were Elvis nuts, and that brother even named a daughter Lisa Marie (whose dog was, of course, named Presley). She went to pretty much every Vegas show of that era. That is just what you did on dates, like going to a movie elsewhere. And the most memorable one was seeing Elvis that night. To top it off, after sitting in the front row, he had the two of them backstage after the show, where he gave her the scarf he had been wearing on stage. Her friend wanted desperately to hop him when they got back to his dressing room. Not going to happen. Not even close. He was the perfect, charming, southern gentleman. She could easily understand, after that night, how a generation of young women had fallen in love with him.
To this day, every Christmas, we play his Christmas album, and a religious one of his for Easter. We both love his music. But she always reminds me that he was so much better in person, well past his prime, not long before his death.
Yes, of course I went to Graceland.
Gave me a whole new definition of tacky.
"exit through the gift shop" is not just an expression there. It is a guiding architectural principle.
There must have been 15-20 of them.
You could not leave any room without going through one.
All selling the same stuff.
John Henry
Dave at 9:52 gets at why Elvis only recorded 3 Dylan songs (versions of "Don't Think Twice...", and "I shall be Released" can be found on YouTube). Except, according to Dolly, Colonel Parker was the one that required that Elvis get 50% of the writing credits for her song.
Elvis's version of "Tomorrow is a Long Time" is exquisite. I like it better better the Dylan's original. There was an outtake from the Self Portrait sessions of Dylan doing a version of the song similar to Elvis'. Really liked that, but I just checked and it's no longer on YouTube.
I don't think Elvis would have done a great version of "Forever Young". Suspect it would have been too sappy.
Wished that Elvis had covered "I Threw it all Away". Dylan was channeling Elvis on that song. Elvis would have nailed it.
Elvis is the King - everything he did was great and uniquely Elvis - R&B, Gospel, Rock, Country, Pop. Graceland is decorated in a style that can only be described as ultra 70s tacky - but then, wasn't all decorating tacky in the 70s?
So sad about his grandson. Every time I hear about the death of a young person, the first thing that comes to mind is suicide. All too often that is the cause of death.
There's an excellent lecture by University of Chicago professor that examines Dylan's various singing styles. At around 19:30 he suggests Elvis' influence on Dylan and around 39:00 he proves it with comparative spectrograms of both singing Blue Moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1323&v=Qf7RGph3buc
>>Rory said...
What am I missing about Don't Think Twice, It's All Right?<<
Where did that come from?
Anyway, you could start with the poetry. Then perhaps notice the absolutely wonderful fingerpicking...and the sweet melody rendered by that. You could maybe even be moved by its evocative angst of breaking up. I don't know what to tell you, otherwise.
Look, if you're not a Dylan fan (you know, the tedious, "That guy can't sing!") then nothing I explain to you is going to register. But there it is anyway.
Kurt Russel was paid $5 to kick Elvis, and he did.
Bob Dylan got mad at Paul McCartney's wife's who saw Bruce Springsteen chanting Woody Guthrie channeling The Grapes of Wrath at the Americana Festival at The Kennedy Center.
Mangy old pumas.
Read some f**kin' Chaucer. The mangiest.
One of the best things about Keillor's PHC was the regular appearance by Odetta. What a talent!
The Elvis version is very sweet; Bob's singing is never that good; "Forever Young" and Rod Stewart are awful, separately or together.
I have never been to Graceland. I have the native's exemption, plus, I not only believe that redneck+money = tacky, I've seen it done.
Narr
I have been to Tupelo though
Why didn't Elvis want to sing that? If he had sung it, and we'd all heard it from Elvis first, Elvis and not Dylan, the world would have been entirely different all these years, I imagine. Elvis would not have died when he did. We would not be reading of the grandson's death today.
So what you're saying is, Elvis and his kid are dead because there is a curse adherent to Elvis' disregard of Dylan's wish, and you're glad they're dead, because he defied your idol.
Or were you pretending that anybody did, does, or ever GAF what Bob Dylan says? So as to lllllearrrrrn from his wisdom? What have you ever learned from his wisdom? How to be a bitch and a control freak? To hate God and want Him to die? Maybe all that is what you LEARNED, but that is not what Bob Dylan ever TAUGHT, if he ever tried to teach anybody anything.
Just as long as it isn't Elvis trying to sing 'Are You Lonesome Tonight.' Malcolm Gladwell did an interesting Revisionist History podcast on his inability (parapraxis) to sing it without stumbling through the lyrics. Apparently there are no known recordings of his singing it completely correct.
Ice Nine said "Where did that come from?"
The post seems to say clearly that Elvis recorded only one Dylan song, so I was asking if there is some context where Don't Think Twice isn't a Dylan song, or some context where Elvis didn't record it.
Lisa Marie was a devoted Scientologist when her son was young. That organization is crushingly abusive toward young people, and I have to wonder what damage the poor young man was carrying around from that upbringing.
>>Rory said:
so I was asking if there is some context where Don't Think Twice isn't a Dylan song, or some context where Elvis didn't record it.<<
Oh Ok, got ya; I had no idea that Elvis recorded DTT.
I like Elvis a lot but that is a terrible thing to do to that song.
“ Dave at 9:52 gets at why Elvis only recorded 3 Dylan songs (versions of "Don't Think Twice...", and "I shall be Released" can be found on YouTube).“
Those other 2 songs are just snippets of him singing something live, not making a record of something to be released for sale.
I shall not be released, one might say.
Stoner explains that in the podcast and that’s the basis for my saying Elvis recorded only one Dylan song.
I remember reading many years ago that in an interview when asked why he got into music Dylan answered, "to get chicks".
I thought wow, now that's an honest answer.
Those other 2 songs are just snippets of him singing something live, not making a record of something to be released for sale.
Not that knowledgeable about Elvis, but I checked online and saw that "Don't Think Twice..." was released on the album called "Elvis" in 1973 by his label, RCA. Couldn't find an album for "I Shall be Released".
Thanks for the link to the Stoner podcast. I'm listening to it now. Interesting - the guy is not shy about expressing his opinion. I knew the name from album liners - great 70's name.
Ice Nine
can I be a fan of Dylan the writer and kind of Meh on Dylan the singer and musician?
Or do I have to be all in on all 3
John Henry
Not a complaint about Dylan, btw.
Irving Berlin Americana composer non pareil could only pick out tunes on the piano with 2 fingers.
There is no rule that a good writer has to be a good musician. Or vice versa
They seem like two talents.
John Henry
(eaglebeak)
Last song Elvis ever recorded: "It's Easy for You" (October 1976).
Note the "I threw them all away."
(eaglebeak)
Oops--here is the last song Elvis ever recorded:
http://american-wolf.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-last-song-elvis-presley-ever.html
"It's Easy for You."
--- the world would have been entirely different all these years, I imagine. Elvis would not have died when he did. We would not be reading of the grandson's death today.
I took this as unusually deadpan humor. But none of the other comments have taken it that way.
Literally, it's preposterous. So it has to have been ironic/sarcastic/TIC/trolling. Yes??
Bob Dylan? As Joni said, everything about him was fake. But he did write some good songs and Forever Young is one of them.
I agree with those who think Rod Stewart's version is the best. Bob's is not terrible, though.
Hey, nobody can top The Wonder Who, and their connect the dots 45 sleeve..
>>John henry said...
can I be a fan of Dylan the writer and kind of Meh on Dylan the singer and musician?
Or do I have to be all in on all 3<<
You don't have to be all in on anything but the answer is, duh, of course.
Your question nicely illustrates my very point, thank you. Dylan's art, his music, and his significance is dismissed by many solely because of his voice. (Yet for example, Sinatra, who consistently sang off key - which Dylan didn't - and who like Dylan and a number of other major singers had a very narrow vocal range -- and Sinatra walks on water.)
The Rod Stewart cover isn't really a cover, it's an inadvertent knock-off. After it was recorded, Stewart's management noticed the similarities to the Dylan song and agreed to split the publishing rights with him. The first verses are really close. Later on Dylan's building a ladder to the stars, while Stewart's building a stairway to Heaven. Wikipedia reports about a zillion covers of the Dylan song but the only Stewart Forever Young cover they take note of is a version on "Glee."
Ben Keough's older sister Riley Keough starred in the STARZ series "The Girlfriend Experience".
If Elvis had recorded “forever young“, he wouldn’t have been Elvis.
At my daughter's memorial service last September, after I gave the eulogy, I played a trio of songs set to photos of her. "Forever Young" by Stewart was the second of the trio and it fit perfectly. I have never heard the other versions.
THEOLDMAN
A lot of times the difference between a artists isn’t so much skill and talent as taste, discrimination. Both Sinatra and Dylan had great musical taste in performance and discrimination in material. Sometimes you see a musician who has all the chops in the world but no taste come off like that lounge singer Bill Murray used to play on SNL. Willie Nelson has taste, Johnny Cash had it, John Lennon had it maybe more than Paul McCartney.
Sorry about your loss, Marcus.
"Later on Dylan's building a ladder to the stars, while Stewart's building a stairway to Heaven"
So they both stole it from someone else, like Gospel Q? Thank you, Jeff. Love the Rod Stewart song.
(eaglebeak)
Barry Dauphin is so right. There's no universe in which Elvis would have recorded "Forever Young."
After seeing documentary about Elvis and Colonel Parker, no doubt Elvis did not make his own decisions. Seemed like a fairly simple type of person.
The Holmes arrangement sounds uncannily like an Elvis song already. Elvis probably could have recorded himself singing along with the record and it would have turned out fine.
Not as well known but Colonel Parker also managed the Hanks Williams and Snow but also Eddie Arnold who at his height was as popular as Elvis ever was.
A lot of times the difference between a artists isn’t so much skill and talent as taste, discrimination.
This is a great point, and I'll add that Elvis was a fantastic interpreter and arranger of other people's music.
Think about it: every Elvis song you've ever heard is an interpretation or rearrangement of someone else's song. And yet, how many songs are there where he recorded the definitive version?
Elvis might have had a horrible freak accident in the recording studio, singing that song, electrocuted with a microphone stuck up his colon, and died even more ignominiously than he did later.
Don't mess with the existing timeline, when traveling across the years, so many other histories are much worse than what we remember happening.
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