Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis

Jul 18, 2018

The one song The King couldn’t sing.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the New York psychoanalytic society and Institute is in a very formal European style building on a quiet side street on the upper east side of Manhattan Oak tables High ceilings in the library Long ribbons of leather bound volumes and five different busts of Sigmund Freud all in a row

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I went there to meet with the society's president Michelle press a psychoanalyst herself with that lovely quality of patients and openness the best therapists always have I wanted to talk with her about a subject that I've always found deeply interesting what Freud called para Praxis but not just anyone's para Praxis the Kings para Praxis

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my name is Malcolm Gladwell you're listening to revisionist history my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood after the first two episodes on memory earlier this season I decided to do a third it involves an odyssey

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this Odyssey took me from the pages of the handbook of psycho biography to a shrine in Tennessee to the legendary battery studios in Times Square and to the hushed offices of the New York psychoanalytic Society where I sat with Michelle press in search of an answer to a simple question what if a singer couldn't remember the words to a song a song had sung a thousand times particular parts of the song the same part of the song over and over what would that tell us about the singer

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it was a term in German faulty Acts or faulty functions it would be slips of the tongue it could be Miss readings Miss hearings but it's Freud's invention Michelle press is talking about para Praxis from the Greek para meaning abnormal Beyond Praxis meaning act abnormal speech Acts or as they are more colloquially known Freudian slips destroyed mean that there are no accidental slips or that if you look at the range of accent steps you can find meaning in some so when you read him he doesn't want to sound that kind of definitive he'll say yes maybe one might prove that there are some that are truly accidental or truly a result of fatigue or of maybe some you know medical illness but he said if you do the work one will find the reasons for the slip that they're not accidental that they have he called it

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sense and that that sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious ideas that are trying to find expression but are because they're unacceptable they emerge in these ways when one might be unguarded know is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion of Praxis yes

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when I was over here

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in 1956 early in his career Elvis Presley recorded a song called Old Shep it's a Sentimental song about a boy and his dog Shep written in the 1930s by Red Foley the dog gets old and sick the vet says there's no hope the boy aims his rifle at Shep to put him out of his misery but he can't pull the trigger he lies down next to Shep cradles him in his arms as the dog dies and the song ends

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oh Shelby has gone whether good dough let's go and no more with ocean but if tall dogs have a heaven there's one they all share pass Wonder

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old Shep is not one of us has more famous songs but in an essay published in 2005 on Elvis the psychologist Allan Elms and Bruce Heller have an aside about a small but significant discrepancy between the original version of Old Ship and Elvis is cover I'm going to come back to Heller and Elms in a while because they really do the most thorough analysis of Elvis's lyrical para Praxis but let's start with old Shep

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Listen to Hank Snow performing the lyrics as they were originally written the boy has just put away his gun realizing he can't shoot Chef so I threw down metal gun ran right up to his side he laid his faithful old him read online and friends I stroked the best pal but a man ever found I even cried so I scarcely could see now listen to Elvis singing his version

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I had Shrunk the best friend that a man I cried so I scares me

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Hank Snow sings I stroked the best pal a man ever found meaning that the boy considers an act of violence against his best pal then decides against it and takes instead the path of nurture and sympathy he recovers his Humanity

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but Elvis things I had struck the best friend a man ever had which turns the meaning of the song completely upside down the boy does not recover his Humanity he now holds himself responsible for an act of violence against Shep an act of violence that in fact he did not commit stroke becomes struck and all of a sudden the song about moral Redemption turns into a song about morbid remorse now I suppose you can say stroke struck whatever those two words sound the same it's just a cover but it's not just a cover Elvis was obsessed with Old Ship it's the first song he ever learned on the guitar he played it incessantly as a child at age 10 he played it at the Mississippi Alabama Fair his first public performance he played it at his high school talent show and one he played it on dates with girls he played it well into his career

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and why does the song resonate so much with him it's a song about love betrayal and loss themes that are at the center of Elvis's life

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he's at winless Twin someone whose twin died in utero and he's obsessed by that fact he brings it up again and again the loss of someone who should have been his closest friend Elvis is Mother Gladys is to say the least unusual she's controlling intense he calls her baby Gladys died when Elvis was just 23 when he first saw her casket he threw himself on top of her body then stepped back and talked about how beautiful she was while pointing to her dead feet he called them her little suit he's he did this again and again at the end of the funeral service he lay on top of her casket saying I want to go with you I don't want to stay here I can't be without you

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and we haven't even gotten to Priscilla Elvis is wife he spotted her when she was 14 and eventually convinced her to move in with him in Memphis

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once Elvis took you to move yes you did

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this is Priscilla being interviewed by Barbara Walters in 1985 why that Fascination I don't know I don't know what the fascination with this is not the first time that he had done this I don't know if it was for the shock value you know to see how people would react or just for his own thrill of it you wrote there were times when you were in Elvis spend days in the bedroom freezing bedroom he liked it fake home the windows with black out drapes are no sunlight entered day after day

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Edwin in two weeks yes we stayed like that we had our food delivered by the door and it was cold I mean you did like a cold and it was dark and I could get real lonely

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and that's that's how he liked it at times but a cocoon almost like a wound I guess you think Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on a white couch surrounded by pink flowers Priscilla is in a strapless sundress she looks amazing Barbara Walters turns to her and says Elvis controlled your looks your clothes your hair your makeup he controlled you totally Priscilla says yes he did then six years you lived there before he decided to marry you in those six years of sleeping with him every night he never had intercourse with you

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you wrote in your book that they were times when you begged in six years

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Priscilla why well again you know I can only go back to what his concept was as what he wanted in a woman and somewhere he along in his past he said that he wanted a virgin Elvis is complicated and what does Freud's theory of para Praxis say that complicated feelings inappropriate may be unacceptable feelings are normally suppressed but every now and again some little bit of that buried emotion slips out and if you're paying attention and listening closely that little slip can tell you something struck four stroke

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but old chap is just the beginning for Elvis the real pair of Praxis occurs in Are You Lonesome Tonight a song originally written in the 1920s and which Elvis took to the top of the charts just after he came out of the army

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zero 106 take two

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Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music Row in Nashville April 4th 1968 the recordings from the original session now held in the Sony music archive in terms of yeah this is there's numerous takes here so they fall apart they make a mistake and what have you John Jackson and Vic n acini from Sony me all listening together at the legendary battery studios in Manhattan where everyone from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen recorded Holy Ground I started my quest at the very beginning if you are

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shall I tell me dear Are You Lonesome Tonight

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I see so many is he what he records that are the Jordanaires signal along with him or they're laying that track out separately no live it's like everything's on here he always preferred to have everyone in one room yeah and record live even one room not in booths or no no no you hated booths recording the song was not Elvis's idea it was a favorite of the wife of his manager Tom Parker in the studio Albus asked the lights be turned off so the room was in darkness he did five takes he didn't like any of them it was 4:00 in the morning when he recorded it so he made everyone get out of the studio go away and then he just did it yeah and then they this is the second take which they told them the background singers you know p pop Twee that's because he said just stop the tape you know I'm done it's just a once more because you know later p pop on there so the third take ends up being the master oh I see he held it to their label held it back for seven eight months

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he didn't realize what they had in their hands yeah it was seven months I think after he got ya they finally released it as a single and didn't go out and he had done eight songs for Elvis is back and this was just like yet just try this one recorded in the wee hours of the morning in darkness as a favor to someone else a song neither Elvis nor his label particularly liked it's almost like the song had a curse on it right from the beginning and from then on Elvis could never quite get it right

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I talked about this with Michelle press at the New York psychoanalytic Society Elvis wasn't typically someone who forgot the words to the songs he sang It's always example sort of his life of him being able to recite to sing from memory massive amounts of stuff

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I'm worried I'm interested about that there's a little slip I'm worried about is that I said I'm worried about that I'm interested in that and I'm wondering what the what would you make of that as a psychoanalyst I try to go on but of course I'm talking to a hardcore Freudian I meant to say I was interested but what came out was worried I mean I'm still caught on your slip obviously thinking what are you what do you make of it so one thought was whether the slip might be key to something that you're figuring out in puzzling with with him because you're right now you're immersed in him

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oh I am I've been singing this song under my breath for months I can't understand why I've never been an Elvis fan I don't own a single song of his or am I am I drawn to the story because isn't this story that I'm talking to you the great anxiety of anyone in a creative field that moment when you lose control right where the

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the presentation to the audience is unmasked I want to I want to show you if I take out my laptop pull up YouTube there's a mountain of Elvis on YouTube one of the last performances of his life it's bananas I mean it just it's he's just singing a song he's singing thousands of times and he just completely lose control of it

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I can skip it can you hear it

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I wonder if

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if You Lonesome Tonight

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you know someone said the roads are stains in each of us play a part they had me here playing in Beverly and plus tax original absolute Clarity never miss they came back to you've got the words seemed to change when I first saw it it as someone in a I'm not Elvis but I'm someone in a creative field it terrified me it's like up on stage doing what he's paid to do and he he just the stage is bare and I'm standing there without any hair I don't know

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every live performance he's ever given of this that we have on tape he mangles the bridge he can't do it right it's he's Rich he's returning to his song again and again and again and again and again and doing the same kind of the in this particular spin always a bridge so singing party's almost over how many years did this go on yours

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okay in 1982 this laughing version was a real hit in the UK and reached number 25 in the British singles chart at battery Studios I made the Sony guys play every version they had they even have names laughing Elvis crazy Elvis each one Stranger than the one before the world is this

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there's sweat and tears streaming down his face

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goes on like this on and on

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good man

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have you ever played the song before no I never played it before right and it's funny I played a bunch of check put a bunch of his stuff you might flip in that I'm with Jack White at his studio in Nashville Third Man Records Jack White formerly of the White Stripes one of the great rock and rollers of his generation and a huge Elvis fan he's a shrine to Elvis in his hallway actual Shrine all that's missing is flowers we met in his private office lots of black and yellow and leather and Taxidermy he sat on the couch with a guitar do you play chess do you play Elvis songs in concert sometimes I do

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treatment me love me and just trim it just the same they don't stop I'm enjoying it anything any other ones you do awake by the way why do you why that one what's it about that song I had heard that early from a band called the flat to a jets that I really liked it and I didn't know it was Elvis and then when I heard the Elvis first night connected the two I'm oh no you and I started doing it when I put in coffee houses I started playing that weight was like 16 yeah so I goes back which is funny I die eventually heard a story or Robert Plant

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telling Elvis he loved that song when Led Zeppelin met Ellis and then when they walked out of the hallway that Elvis poked his head out in the hallway and sang that song to Robert plan they sang it back to each other and crying and must have been an amazing moment Jack White owns the original acetate pressing of Elvis's first recording from 1953 my happiness after we talked white took me into his vault to show it to me it's Priceless he asked me if I wanted to hold it I was too terrified to say yes Jack White seemed like the right person to see to try and understand Elvis's problem in Are You Lonesome Tonight all right let me see if I can take a crack at might have to get her couple worlds but

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Are You Lonesome Tonight do you miss me tonight are you sorry we drifted apart does your memo restrain

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to a bright summer day when I kissed you and called you sweetheart

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do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare do you gaze at the doorstep and it show me then is your heart filled with pain shall I come back again tell me dear Are You Lonesome Tonight that's the first half of the song the song version all questions a man is wondering whether his lover misses him then comes the spoken bridge in which the emotional tables are turned and the man leaves himself bear

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Are You Lonesome Tonight has been recorded countless times over the years a lot of performers leave out the bridge because it's corny and way too long and hard Elvis kept it in so does Jack White

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I wonder if your lonesome you know someone said that the world's a stage and each must play A Part fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart that one was where we had I Loved You at first glance you read your lines so cleverly never missed a cue thinking back to you seem to change your acting strange and why I've never known honey you lied when you said you loved me and I had no cause to doubt you but I'd rather go on hearing your lies and the go on Living Without You

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now the stage is bare and I'm standing there with emptiness all around if you won't come back to me is your heart filled with playing shall I come back again tell me dear you enjoyed that there's some nice Parts where it gets the you can see playing that live now that just did that like what we just did that of I played it once yesterday I reading this but now playing like that I could see wow live you could really

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it really could get to be in a really emotional song

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so I didn't really think about it until just then what led you to think that just now because it feels like it's in a mine it's a lot of minor chords so that that's already gets you in that Melancholy Vibe but it has it has that

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what just occurred to me now is he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't really care of that if she's Lonesome it he's Lonesome the singer is Lonesome and it's a MacGuffin to pretend like I'm I'm worried about you Are You Lonesome Tonight you know but it's really he's the singers worried about himself so that could be you know you take that kind of emotional song and you put years and years on stage and then you put drugs in the mix and then in your own State of Mind at the time it could be a real you you could be on to something there I could be a real diversion that it's too powerful to listening what's fascinating is that the some parts the singer is in control and he's worried about her right broken parts the singer is vulnerable yeah confessing his own and it's so screwed up it's like I know you lied to me and I wish you hadn't right I wish I didn't know that you'd like to make is that rather be in the state of being deceived

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the know the truth which is right 17 convolutions of neuroticism is he still he still blaming her most of the lines it's still so pointing the finger white says you can't run from that kind of emotion not if you're singing the song properly and so when he writes songs he tries to establish some distance between himself and the feelings he singing about I tried to push it into a character standpoint rather than it being a self confession confessional for me because I think that would be really hard to consistently keep living that moment over and over and over again I've definitely seen older artists ignoring certain parts of their certain songs in their career because it's probably too close to home about something or other

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but you can't avoid a songs emotional effects all the time and especially not when you have to read a soliloquy in the middle of it which is what the Are You Lonesome Bridge is a speech parachuted Into the Heart of the song I had a little flub moment at one point trying to figure out well wait a minute it's a waltz you know you have that so if I'm like I wonder if 2 3 so 1 2 3 1 2 3 see your brain kind of wants to go I wonder if You Lonesome Tonight that's what your brain wants to do you know someone said that the world's a stage and we must each play A Part then it starts to get that silly boy he breaks down yeah I mean it would I mean I would I can definitely say that this would be a lot easier someone else was playing guitar

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could just recite that part which should I recite it while you play the guitar yeah let's do that so we do that right yeah I'm not going to torture you with my rendition of the spoken Bridge well maybe later I'm just saying until I die I can say I play with Jack White and then because how many opportunities am I going to get like this I asked Jack White to help me edit the Soliloquy if one were to rewrite it I'm thinking you that you you lose the first three lines hmm fate had me playing in love you as my sweetheart or even act one was when we met why don't why don't they just start with Act One do that act one was where two men I Loved You at first glance he read your lines so carefully never missed a cue

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when I do there you said carefully instead of properly which is it clever beautiful friends persecute then came back to you seem to change your acted strange what did Jack White do their the actual lyric is you read your lines so cleverly he said you read your lines so carefully carefully for cleverly a man singing one of the songs of his musical Idol comes to the emotionally Complex Center and what do we hear a moment of vulnerability can he be as clever as Elvis he's not sure he must be careful para Praxis

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sometimes you know I love I love him so much and that I you know I'm afraid to learn more about certain things like it you know and it sucks you so close to it and you've experienced certain things about you know nothing in comparison to what he went through but you're in the same where we do the same kind of thing we perform and we go on stages and we make records and all this stuff I'm from a different time period but you notice these tiny little moments that are when you when you see someone oh I know exactly what that's about I know exactly what that feels like

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there are 10 known live recordings of Elvis performing Are You Lonesome Tonight starting in 1961 in a concert at block arena in Honolulu up to the end of Elvis's life in 1977 Alan Elms and Bruce Heller analyze them all in there sa 12 ways to say Lonesome assessing are and control in the music of Elvis Presley Elms and Heller find that Elvis performs the sung portion of Are You Lonesome Tonight more or less flawlessly because the song portion is the part of the song where the singer is in control

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but in the spoken Bridge the narrator is suddenly the one who's been deceived and rejected and that's the part Elvis Can't Get Right Elms and Heller count a total of a hundred and nine errors in those ten live performances of the spoken Bridge 29 of which involve just four lines I Loved You at first glance where he confesses the depths of his feelings you seem to change you acted strange where he testifies to his betrayal and rejection and why I've never known where he expresses his feelings of anger and victimization and with emptiness all around where he admits to his loneliness

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the most problematic Renditions of the bridge are the later ones which come after the summer of 1972

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what happens in the summer of 1972 and one day you went in and said I'm leaving

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there was another man in your life he was your karate teacher right Mike's done and you went off then and lived with him

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Priscilla Presley back on the couch with Barbara Walters America's Primetime Freudian it was said that Elvis tried to kill him I wanted him killed right do you believe that I think at that time yes he did he wanted that to happen

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I do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and where do you get that your bald head and wish you had her

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there was pain shall I come back are you lost a man who fears betrayal and abandonment is betrayed and abandoned

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it's too much he's a wreck like a baby

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shark tell me dude

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after I left Jack White I went to see Bobby Braddock just down the street at the Sony Studios on Nashville's Music Row this is Justin good you may remember Bobby Braddock from season 2 of revisionist History he's the legendary songwriter I called the king of Tears Braddock wanted to introduce me to a good friend of his a singer songwriter named Casey bowls that's the church across Alto 30-something long red hair the kind of person who if you touch you expect a little jolt of static it work you won't sing that song we were in the biggest of the Sony recording studios on the main floor in a corner where the piano was

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Casey sang Are You Lonesome Tonight with Bobby on the piano

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we drift

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then we sat and they talked about Nashville they talked about how they both grew up in the Church of Christ the most strict of Southern fundamentalist denominations and they talked about Elvis my dad thought he was Elvis I think yeah he really he was a Church of Christ along later and really wanted to be a Jordan are badly and so Ray Walker was one of the Jordanaires and he tried to emulate him by way of dress and hair style and so I grew up either hearing him say Hello Darlin nice to see or doing this sort of you know is it Vaudeville style or just just sort of a Over the Top Model in style I guess is modeling the way you'd say modeling then Bobby Braddock started talking about recitations the spoken part in many older country songs and he made the same point that Jack White did that they're much easier if they're set to music if you could just as easily sing them like I want to Braddock's

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famous songs He Stopped Loving Her Today the rushed age like you could sing that she came to see him one last time we all wondered if she would and that works either way but this is just like we got this song was get a recitation throw it in there and they obviously made it work and I'm thinking just instinctively just because he was he was just so good recitations are unusual these days Braddock hasn't written one since something he did for Toby Keith in the 1990s Lasha successful recitation song I am was actually it was like well actually it was it was it was a hip-hop thing I want to talk about me that that that was talking talking talking okay that's what I'm thinking

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but you know it's all we can you you you can you play a little slice of that you remember I can pretty much any case and they never do that why do that always always do it with with the karaoke thing when I get up there and play the thing I'm going to talk about me when we talk about I want to talk about number one or that's you talk about your work how your boss is a jerk you talk about your church and you hit and run first talk about the trouble you've been having with your mother and your dad you with your brother and your dad and your mother and your crazy ex lover you know and then it stopped and then the menstrual menstrual period line which everybody said you can't put that in a song nobody'll ever cut it you know and it was one of the biggest songs ever had about your medical charts and when you start

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take that out nobody record Toby Keith did he's probably the only one who would have them

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then I showed them the prize I brought it my back my copy of the handbook of psycho biography containing the Heller and Elms essay well I have my book here tell you especially yeah that is fascinating to a pair of Elvis Fanatics it was like I'd unearth the Dead Sea Scrolls what's the book the book called Handbook of cycle biography and it has an essay on this song wow Chaka biography and so yeah so here's so this guy is gone through MIT a chart of all the all of the lyrical mistakes that Elvis made in every known live recording of yeah these were two songwriters and I felt they immediately saw themselves in that chart do you find yourself making the kind of errors sometimes even subtle ones that you know we've been talking about that's so interest I wrote a song about my mother called somebody something and my mother is

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adorable and then whenever you heard about things going wrong or like some tumultuous story it was my dad and so I finally was like you know what were the only person in the family that there's nothing I haven't written about so it's trying to dig dirt on her and there was nothing and so I ended up writing this song about her called somebody something and I cry every time I do it and there is a line that says you know she's always been somebody something she's lived every life better own and it's gone I can't remember it right now

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I know that feeling I can't remember it hmm she's always been somebody sometimes been everything but alone

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a daughter a mother a lot a daughter A Lover a wife and a mother she's lived every life but her own yes she's always been somebody something and there's a line that says you know she she wonders what it might be like to be somebody else and she wonders

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what it feels like to be free but she's always imagined being nobody's nothing and that's something she never want to be but that line usually is just gone and a lot of times I'll go hold on and divert and tell a funny story really quickly yeah we wouldn't do the specific line that's gone is which one let's go on again she's always been so many symptoms fit everything but I won't daughter liver a daughter A Lover a wife and a mother she's been everything but alone yeah

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yeah why is it that long I don't know I think that um

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I don't know I think when you even she's so when you see somebody give so much of themselves and that's truly the only thing that she will never experience and I think it's what I've experienced the most stuff

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a minute before we were joking about Toby Keith now Casey is pensive as she compares her mother's life to her own not being able to make a relationship work the first eighteen thousand times out of the gate are you know officially the first two and not being a mother and she'll real close to right yeah lover because it's good go to church where there right do I sit still because she makes me stay awake it's good when I when I was a kid but I get bored in church and my mother and reach them and pinch me you know I got smacked we Casey can you play that song for us is it going to be to let's say okay okay well we'll see if this happens

► 00:49:22

she grew up playing cowgirl in a railroad Town dream a shit see oh shoot hold on there's a line but Elvis in this that's just random Hold On Dream instead she Hollywood I'm going to go again

► 00:49:52

but I just say sorry I'm thinking about mom she grew up playing cowgirl she grew up playing cowgirl I'll wrote down Dream It's GHC Hollywood someday she knew some distant Friday night with a cigarette told just write fate would come and carry away as as far she could see from there those were just begs that's not right

► 00:50:35

hold on one second

► 00:50:40

my first reaction to Casey's failure of memory was to be embarrassed for her worried that she had lost control that's the way we're trained to think just listen to the words I've just used failure embarrassed worried in one way or another that's what this season of revisionist History has been about about the ways we judge each other for our mistakes and choices the easiest thing in the world is to look at those mistakes and condemn the much harder thing is to look at those mistakes and understand she married in December and address her mama made she looked on grown up standing there like that had a honeymoon in Memphis Town yeah she looked for Elvis all-male of in the gray

► 00:51:40

I'm coming back as far as she could see from there those were just the facts fly you went from Somebody's Daughter somebody's wife

► 00:51:59

para Praxis is not failure when the performers slips the audience is not cheated it's the opposite para Praxis is a gift

► 00:52:12

I presented myself as interested in this story but now you know that this subject doesn't just interest me it worries me losing control is my great anxiety when Jack White said carefully instead of cleverly it was a hint that playing Elvis wasn't a trivial matter for him it was a sacred act carefully full of care

► 00:52:41

and Elvis after the loss of Priscilla sang a song he'd sung a thousand times only now in a way that gave the audience a window on his pain

► 00:52:54

mistakes reveal our vulnerabilities they are the way the world understands us the way performers make their performances real so Bobby Braddock and I sat there listening to Casey's sing Tears In Her Eyes fumbling to remember the lyrics of a song about her mother fumbling not because her mother didn't matter to her but because she did she is always there

► 00:53:26

spin everything

► 00:53:58

she's always been God's beautiful why are you covering your mouth I'm just that's just weird

► 00:54:16

because I've never it's just weird when you're thinking about what it is like I just thought oh bad memory too many songs old too many songs in there but at any point in time I could pull out

► 00:54:29

a wrap from New Edition from 1980 to likewise that in there and something that you wrote is not in there that is so weird

► 00:54:39

it's not weird a lesser person would have sung it perfectly

► 00:55:01

thank you for listening to season 3 of revisionist history and if you liked this episode you'll enjoy my new series launching later this year it's called broken record and you can subscribe right now on Apple podcasts revisionist history is a panoply production the senior producer is me labelled with Jacob Smith and Camille Baptista our editor is Julia Barton flan Williams is our engineer fact-checking by Beth Johnson original music by Luis Guerra special thanks to Kim green and Hal Humphreys of storyboard EMP in Nashville and here in New York thanks to Jason gambrel have in Viola Rachel Strom Nicole bunts has Kate Mescal Christian meinzer Carly migliori Andy Bowers

► 00:55:49

and of course El Jefe Jacob Weisberg I'm Malcolm Gladwell

► 00:56:12

okay so we'll be a Wonder If You Lonesome Tonight you know someone said that the world's a stage and each must play A Part fate had be playing in love you as my sweetheart back one was when we met I Loved You at first glance you read your lines so cleverly never missed a cue

► 00:56:50

then came back to G you seem to change and you acted strange and why I'll never know honey you lied when you said you loved me and I had no cause to doubt you but I'd rather go on hearing your lies the go on Living Without You Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there with emptiness all around and if you won't come back to me then make them bring the curtain down how about you very good I'm not very Musical

► 00:57:38

on July 10th 2015 a young woman named Sandra Bland was stopped by a police officer on a highway in rural Texas then everything went wrong I've written a book called talking to strangers it starts with that encounter but I didn't just write for the page I recorded an audio book as well a new kind of audio book that allows you to hear the voices of the people I talked to and come with me to the places I go because you shouldn't just listen to an audiobook you should experience it talking to strangers the audio experience available now wherever audio books are sold