Hi guys,
so I’m a huge Elvis fan. A few years ago I bought every Elvis video I could find. No, not the movies but live videos. My favorite and one I wholeheartedly recommend is That’s The Way It Is, a documentary about him performing in Vegas. I find the footage from band rehearsals fascinating. If you thought Elvis was not the band leader, watch this and think again.
Before I went into video-buying mode I had read both volumes of Peter Guralnick’s amazing, overwhelming two-part biography, “Last Train To Memphis” and “Careless Love”. Some people say, one describes the way up, the other the way down. But here’s the thing: yes, he gained a lot of weight and used a lot of substances he shouldn’t have but as far as the music goes, the man was still impeccable. Well, most of the time. He did like some overblown melodramatic stuff. But some of those songs he did still blow my mind. Kentucky Rain, The Wonder Of You, Burning Love (!!!), what I’m trying to say is, he still had it!
I also immensely enjoyed reading Mark Childress’s fictional first-person account of Elvis’s life, “Tender”. The main character’s name is not Elvis (probably for legal or other reasons) but it still is undeniably the king. Obligatory reading, really.
Anyway … one of the reasons for this song was that I wanted to point out that Elvis may have had his issues in later life but musically he was still absolutely great!
Recently, a music critic who heard the song said he liked it but it was “just another song about Elvis”. That surprised me. Is this really such a well-trod subject? I can think of a few songs that mention Elvis but not that many that are about him and none at all that are about, shall we say, “mature Elvis”.
And anyway, I wrote this after visiting Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee and played it shortly thereafter at a house concert in Nashville and it got a really tremendous reaction. This one older guy, a great guitar player, made a point of telling me how much he enjoyed the song. Don’t know how else to say this, it really filled me with pride to get that kind of validation from folks who grew up with Elvis just an hour or so from where he was from.
So here it is, The Kid From Tupelo, recorded on a rooftop with the wind howling in the background. Lyrics below. The full-band version of this appears on the new album “Wild, Blue & True”.
The Kid From Tupelo
He’s overweight and overpaid
he’s middle-aged
and he’s alone
The one he loves she went away
and he thinks about her every day
the only friends he’s got, they’re on his payroll
When he’s looking in the mirror
he don’t see the boy he used to know
But when he lets go
man, it’s rock’n’roll
and he once again feels like the wildest kid
in all of Tupelo
He’s got a bunch of TV sets
got a private jet
and he’s got his own Jungle Room
He takes sleeping pills
and he takes waking pills
and he don’t have all that much to do
When he sees his own reflection
it don’t look nothing like the boy he used to know
But when he lets go
man, it’s rock’n’roll
and he once again feels like the wildest kid
in all of Tupelo
He shakes his hips just so
curls his lip and you know
that he once again feels like the wildest kid
in all of Tupelo
I’ve been to Mississippi
I’ve even been to Graceland
I’ve walked where the King walked
and I just wish that I could sing just like he sang
I wish that I could sing just like the King sang
When he let go
man, it was rock’n’roll
and you know he must’ve been like the wildest kid
in all of Tupelo
He’d shake his hips just so
curl his lip and you know
that he really must’ve been the wildest kid
there never could’ve been a wilder kid
in all of Tupelo
I hope you dig it. Leave a note.
Markus
