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- [00:00]
Malcolm Gladwell
This is an I Heart podcast.
- [00:11]
Michelle Press
Pushkin. To introduce this episode, I just want to relate how random my journey to it was. I was reading a book, I can't even remember what it was. And in a footnote, I always read the footnotes. The author said the psychologist whose work she was referring to had done a very strange paper once about Elvis. At which point I stopped reading the book and looked up the very strange paper about Elvis. It was by Alan Elms. It was amazing. So immediately I go to the next question. Was Allen Elm still alive? Yes, Living in Davis, California. Next step, I gotta go see him. So I immediately fly to San Francisco, rent a car. But the rental agency is out of all cars, except for a bright canary yellow Chevy Corvette, which I take happily. But then, halfway to Davis, driving at speeds that are very, very far from legal, I start thinking, what's this guy going to think of me if I show up in a bright canary yellow Corvette? He's a brilliant psychologist. I don't want him prejudging me. So I park it around the corner, walk to his house and spend a lovely afternoon with him. Sadly, he was feeling poorly at the time and didn't speak well enough for me to use a tape of his interview. But my spontaneous journey set the correct tone, I think, for this whole episode, which is that it was intended to be a caper, a grand caper, in which many crazy, unexpected things happen. And as you will discover, so it was. By the way, the thing that Alan Elms and I talked the most about was not actually his Elvis paper. It was another, even more genius thing he once wrote about the wizard of Oz, which I promise you that I will get to one day here at Revisionist History. Join me for a walk down Revisionist History memory lane. 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. I went there to meet with the Society's president, Michelle Press, a psychoanalyst herself with that lovely quality of patience 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 parapraxis. But not just anyone's parapraxis. The King's parapraxis. 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. This odyssey took me from the pages of the Handbook of Psychobiography 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 Michele Press in search of an answer to a simple question. What if a singer couldn't remember the words to a song, a song he'd 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?
- [04:03]
Alan Elms
It was a term in German, faulty acts or faulty functions. It would be slips of the tongue. It could be misreadings, mishearings. But it's Freud's invention.
- [04:14]
Michelle Press
Michel Press is talking about parapraxis, from the Greek, para meaning abnormal, beyond praxis, meaning act. Abnormal speech acts, or, as they are more colloquially known, Freudian slips. Does Freud mean that there are no accidental slips or that if you look at the range of accidental slips, you can find meaning in some?
- [04:39]
Alan Elms
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 medical illness. But he said, if you do the work, one will find the reasons for this slip, that they're not accidental, that they have. He called it a 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.
- [05:18]
Michelle Press
Now, is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion of parapraxis?
- [05:24]
Alan Elms
Yes.
- [05:26]
Michelle Press
When I.
- [05:29]
Elvis Presley
Was a lad that old ship was above over hills and meadows with strain.
- [05:46]
Michelle Press
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.
- [06:17]
Elvis Presley
Old Shelby has gone where the good dog is Go and no more With.
- [06:28]
Michelle Press
O.
- [06:30]
Elvis Presley
Will I roll but if dogs have a heaven there's one thing I know Old Shep has a wonderful home.
- [06:54]
Michelle Press
Old Shep is not one of Elvis's more famous songs, but in an essay published in 2005 on Elvis. The psychologists Alan Elms and Bruce Heller have an aside about a small but significant discrepancy between the original version of Old Shep and Elvis's 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 parapraxis. But let's start with Old Shep. 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 Shep. So I threw down that old gun Ran right up to his side he laid his faithful old head right on my knee and friends, I stroked the.
- [07:51]
Priscilla Presley
Best pal that a man ever found.
- [07:57]
Michelle Press
I even cried so I scarcely could see. Now listen to Elvis sing his version.
- [08:08]
Elvis Presley
I had struck the best friend that a man ever had I cried so I scarcely could see.
- [08:25]
Michelle Press
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. But Elvis sings, 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 a 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 Shep. 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 won. He played it on dates with girls. He played it well into his career. 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 life. He's a twin. Less 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 mother, Gladys, is, to say the least, unusual. She's controlling, intense. He calls her baby. Gladys died when Albus 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 sutis. 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. And we haven't even gotten to Priscilla, Alvis's wife. He spotted her when she was 14 and eventually convinced her to move in with him. In Memphis.
- [10:53]
Barbara Walters
Once Elvis took you to a morgue. Yes, he did.
- [10:58]
Michelle Press
This is Priscilla being interviewed by Barbara Walters in 1985.
- [11:03]
Barbara Walters
Why? Why that fascination? Bodies? I don't know what the fascination was. 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 and Elvis spent days in the bedroom. Freezing bedroom. He liked it very cold. The windows with blackout drapes so no sunlight entered day after day. Mm. It went into weeks. Yes, we stayed like that. We had our food delivered by the door, and it was cold. I mean, he did like it cold, and it was dark, and it could get real lonely. And that's how he liked it at times. Like a cocoon. Almost like a womb, I guess.
- [11:58]
Michelle Press
You think Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on a white couch surrounded by pink flowers. Priscilla is in a strapless sundress, and 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.
- [12:19]
Barbara Walters
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. Wrote in your book that there were times when you begged him. Six years of that, 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.
- [12:57]
Michelle Press
Elvis is complicated. And what does Freud's theory of parapraxis say? That complicated feelings, inappropriate, maybe 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 for stroke. But old Shep is just the beginning for Elvis. The real parapraxis 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.
- [13:50]
Elvis Presley
Are you lonesome Tonight. Do you miss.
- [13:56]
Michelle Press
Huh? LWB 0106, take two. Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music row in Nashville, April 4, 1960. The recordings from the original session, now held in the Sony Music Archive.
- [14:20]
Jack White
Yeah, this is. There's numerous takes here. So they fall apart, they make a mistake, or what have you.
- [14:25]
Michelle Press
So John Jackson and Vic Ansini 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.
- [14:42]
Elvis Presley
Beginning Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back? Tell me, dear Are you lonesome tonight?
- [15:08]
Michelle Press
Voice is so amazing. Is he. When he records that, Are the Jordanaires singing along with him or they're laying that. No, Live. Everything's live. Yeah. Everything's live, yeah. He always preferred to have everyone in one room and record live.
- [15:24]
Bobby Braddock
Oh, even in one room.
- [15:24]
Michelle Press
Not in booths or.
- [15:25]
Bobby Braddock
No, no, no, no, no.
- [15:26]
Michelle Press
He 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, Elvis asked the lights be turned off so the room was in darkness. He did five takes. He didn't like any of them.
- [15:43]
Jack White
It was four in the morning when he recorded it. So he made everyone get out of the studio, go away. And then he just, you know, did it.
- [15:50]
Michelle Press
Yeah. And then they.
- [15:51]
Jack White
This is the second take which they told them of the background singers. You know, pee popped we're. Because he said, just stop the tape. You know, I'm done. They said, just do it once more because, you know, we get a P Pop on there. So the third take ends up being the master.
- [16:05]
Michelle Press
Oh, I see. And they held it.
- [16:06]
Jack White
The label held it back for seven, eight months.
- [16:08]
Michelle Press
Well, they didn't realize what they had on their hands.
- [16:10]
Jack White
Yeah, it was seven months. I think after he recorded it, they finally released it as a single and didn't even go out. He had done eight songs for Elvis's back. And this was just like, yeah, just try this one.
- [16:25]
Michelle Press
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. 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. There's all these examples out of his life of him being able to recite, to sing from memory, massive amounts of stuff. I'm Worried. I'm interested about that. There's a little slip I'm worried about. I said. I said I'm worried about that. I'm interested in that. And I'm wondering, 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 in, but what came out was worried.
- [17:28]
Alan Elms
I mean, I'm still caught on your slip, obviously thinking, what do you.
- [17:32]
Michelle Press
What do you make of it?
- [17:33]
Alan Elms
So one thought was whether the slip might be a key to something that you're figuring out and puzzling with. With him. Because you're Right now you're immersed in him.
- [17:45]
Michelle Press
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 presentation to the audience is unmasked. I want to. I want to show you. 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, he just. It's. He's just singing a song. He's singing thousands of times, and he just completely loses control of it. I can skip it. Okay, now here comes.
- [18:48]
Elvis Presley
I wonder if you'll want some of light. You know, someone said the world's a.
- [18:56]
Michelle Press
Stage and each of us play a part.
- [18:59]
Elvis Presley
They had me playing in.
- [19:02]
Priscilla Presley
A plus tax.
- [19:04]
Elvis Presley
You read your line so cleverly, you never missed a cue.
- [19:09]
Michelle Press
It came back too. You forgot the word.
- [19:12]
Elvis Presley
You seem to change, fool.
- [19:15]
Michelle Press
When I first saw it, it as someone in a. I mean, 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 just. And the stage is bare and I'm.
- [19:41]
Elvis Presley
Standing there without any hair. I don't know. He won't come back to me.
- [19:53]
Michelle Press
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 returning to the song again and again and again and again and again. And doing the same in this particular. It's always a bridge. So. Singing part.
- [20:09]
Alan Elms
He's almost over. How many years did this go on?
- [20:13]
Michelle Press
Years. Okay.
- [20:16]
Jack White
In 1982, this Latin version was a radio hit in the UK and reached number 25 on the British singles chart.
- [20:23]
Michelle Press
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.
- [20:36]
Elvis Presley
The world's a stage and each must play a part. Oh God.
- [20:56]
Michelle Press
There'S sweat and tears streaming down his face.
- [21:06]
Elvis Presley
Well, I had no cause to die.
- [21:13]
Michelle Press
It goes on like this on and on swinging baby.
- [21:21]
Elvis Presley
Shall I come again Tell me dear, are you. That's it man. 14 years I've done the dream well, I'll tell you.
- [21:51]
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- [22:53]
Michelle Press
Have you ever played this song before?
- [22:55]
Bobby Braddock
No, I never played it before. It's funny. I played a bunch of chick, I played a bunch of his stuff. Would you mind flipping? There's a standby switch on the back.
- [23:05]
Michelle Press
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 has 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? Do you play Elvis songs in concert?
- [23:35]
Bobby Braddock
Sometimes I do.
- [23:42]
Michelle Press
Treat me like a fool Treatment mean.
- [23:47]
Bobby Braddock
Cool all your lim I want you to love me Love me just the same Treat me just the same. Sometimes I'll do that one.
- [24:03]
Michelle Press
I was gonna say don't stop. I'm enjoying it. Anything any other ones you Do Wait, by the way, why do you. Why that one? What's it about? That song?
- [24:15]
Bobby Braddock
I had heard that early from a band called the Flat Duo jets that I really liked.
- [24:18]
Michelle Press
And.
- [24:19]
Bobby Braddock
And I didn't know it was Elvis. And then when I heard the Elvis version, I had connected the two, like, oh, now I really want. And I started doing it when I played in coffee houses. I started playing that. I was like 16. Yeah. So I goes back, which is funny. I. I eventually heard a story of Robert Plant telling Elvis he loved that song when Led Zeppelin met Elvis. 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 were crying and. Must have been an amazing moment.
- [24:55]
Michelle Press
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.
- [25:18]
Bobby Braddock
Can take a crack. I might have to give a couple whirls. But are you lonesome tonight?
- [25:37]
Elvis Presley
Do you miss me tonight?
- [25:42]
Bobby Braddock
Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memory stray to a bright summer day? When I kissed you and called you sweetheart? Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? Do you gaze at the doorstep and picture me?
- [26:25]
Michelle Press
Then.
- [26:27]
Elvis Presley
Is your heart filled with pain?
- [26:32]
Bobby Braddock
Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, are you. Warm song tonight.
- [26:45]
Michelle Press
That's the first half of the song, the sung 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 bare. 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.
- [27:15]
Bobby Braddock
I wonder if you're lonesome tonight. 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. Act one was where we met. I loved you at first glance. You read your lines so cleverly and never missed it. Then came back too. You seemed to change, you acted 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 Than to go on living without you now the stage is bare and I'm standing there with emptiness all around if you won't come back to me Then you bring the curtain down.
- [28:22]
Michelle Press
Is.
- [28:23]
Bobby Braddock
Your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear on your lonesome tonight.
- [28:41]
Elvis Presley
Whoa.
- [28:43]
Michelle Press
Wait. You. You. You enjoyed that?
- [28:48]
Bobby Braddock
I did.
- [28:48]
Michelle Press
It gets.
- [28:49]
Bobby Braddock
I guess there's some nice parts where it gets. You can see, playing that live now. I just did that, like. Well, we just did that. I played it once yesterday, like, reading this. But now playing like that, I could see. Wow, live. You could really. That really could get to be a really emotional song. So I didn't really think about it till just then.
- [29:12]
Michelle Press
What led you to think that just now?
- [29:13]
Bobby Braddock
Because it feels like. Well, it's in A minor. It's got a lot of minor chords, so that. That's already gets you in that melancholy vibe. But it has. It has that. What just occurred to me now is he doesn't. He doesn't. He doesn't really care that if she's lonesome, it's. He's lonesome. The singer is lonesome. And it's a. It's a MacGuffin to. To pretend like I'm worried about you Are you lonesome tonight? You know, but it's really.
- [29:41]
Michelle Press
He's.
- [29:41]
Bobby Braddock
The singer is 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.
- [29:57]
Michelle Press
Re.
- [29:57]
Priscilla Presley
You.
- [29:58]
Bobby Braddock
You could be onto something there. It could be a real diversion that it's too powerful to sing.
- [30:03]
Michelle Press
What's fascinating is the. The sung parts, the singer is in control and he's worried about her. Right? The spoken parts, the singer is vulnerable. He's 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 lied to me. Because I'd rather be in the state of being deceived than know the truth. Which is like 17 convolutions of neuroticism, right?
- [30:32]
Bobby Braddock
He's still blaming her. Most of the lines, still. Still pointing the finger.
- [30:37]
Michelle Press
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's singing about.
- [30:50]
Bobby Braddock
I try to push it into a character's standpoint rather than it being a self confession. Confession 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.
- [31:14]
Michelle Press
But you can't avoid a song's 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.
- [31:28]
Bobby Braddock
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. So your brain kind of wants to go, I wonder if you're 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's.
- [32:06]
Michelle Press
Oh, I see. It breaks down.
- [32:07]
Bobby Braddock
Yeah. I mean, it would. I mean, I would. I can definitely say that this would be a lot easier if someone else was playing guitar and I could just recite that part.
- [32:17]
Michelle Press
Wait, should I recite it while you play the guitar?
- [32:19]
Bobby Braddock
Yeah, let's do that.
- [32:22]
Michelle Press
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 played with Jack White. And then. Because how many opportunities am I gonna get like this. I asked Jack White to help me edit the soliloquy. If one were to rewrite it, I'm thinking that you lose the first three lines. Fate had me playing in love, you as my sweetheart. Or even act one was when we met. Why not? Why don't they just start with act one?
- [32:58]
Bobby Braddock
Do that. Act one was where we met. I loved you at first glance. You read your lines so carefully. Never missed a cue. What did I do there?
- [33:14]
Michelle Press
You said carefully instead of cleverly. When she said clever. Beautiful front.
- [33:18]
Bobby Braddock
Then came act two. You seemed to change. You acted strange.
- [33:24]
Michelle Press
What did Jack White do there? The actual lyric is, you read your lines so cleverly. He said, you read your line 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. Parapraxis.
- [33:56]
Bobby Braddock
Sometimes, you know, I love him so much and that, you know, I'm afraid to learn more about certain things. Like, you know, when you're 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. 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 see something, you're like, oh, wow, I know exactly what that's about. I know exactly what that feels like.
- [34:33]
Michelle Press
There are 10 known live recordings of Elvis performing Are youe Lonesome tonight? Starting in 1961 in a concert at Block arena in Honolulu up to the end of Elvis Life in 1977. Alan Elms and Bruce Heller analyze them all in their essay 12 Ways to say Lonesome. Assessing error and control in the music of Elvis Presley, Elms and Heller find that Elvis performs the sung portion of Are youe Lonesome Tonight? More or less flawlessly, because the sung portion is the part of the song where the singer is in control. 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 109 errors in those 10 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 seemed 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. The most problematic renditions of the bridge are. Are the later ones which come after the summer of 1972. What happens in the summer of 1972?
- [36:11]
Barbara Walters
And one day you went in and said, I'm leaving. There was another man in your life. He was your karate teacher. Right. Mike Stone. And you went off then and lived with him? Yeah.
- [36:24]
Michelle Press
Priscilla Presley back on the couch with Barbara Walters. America's primetime Freudian.
- [36:31]
Barbara Walters
It was said that Elvis tried to kill him or wanted him killed. Right. Do you believe that? I think at that time, yes, he did. He wanted that to happen.
- [36:42]
Elvis Presley
I do. The chairs in your parlor See you empty and bare do you gaze at your ball head and wish you had hair? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back? Tell me, dear Are you lost? Oh, Lord, Lord, I wonder.
- [37:20]
Michelle Press
A man who fears betrayal and abandonment is betrayed and abandoned.
- [37:29]
Elvis Presley
And I had no cause to die.
- [37:37]
Michelle Press
It's too much. He's a wreck.
- [37:40]
Elvis Presley
So ya baby, Shall I come back? Okay. Tell me dear, are you lonesome?
- [38:01]
Casey Bowles
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- [39:03]
Michelle Press
After I left Jack White, I went to see Bobby Braddock. Just down the street at the Sony studios on Nashville's Music Row.
- [39:10]
Priscilla Presley
This was just tune good.
- [39:14]
Michelle Press
You may remember Bobby Braddock from season two 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 Bowles.
- [39:29]
Malcolm Gladwell
That's the church of Christ.
- [39:30]
Michelle Press
Alto, 30 something, long red hair. The kind of person who if you touch you expect a little jolt of static.
- [39:39]
Malcolm Gladwell
It'll work.
- [39:40]
Priscilla Presley
Oh, you want to sing that song?
- [39:42]
Barbara Walters
You want me to sing that song?
- [39:43]
Michelle Press
We were in the biggest of the Sony recording studios on the main floor in a corner where the piano was. Casey sang are you lonesome tonight? With Bobby on the piano.
- [39:57]
Unknown Speaker
Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you Sorry we drifted apart Then.
- [40:13]
Michelle Press
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.
- [40:25]
Malcolm Gladwell
My dad thought he was Elvis, I think. Yeah, he really, he was a church of Christ song leader and really wanted to be a Jordanire badly. And so Ray Walker was one of the Jordanares and he tried to emulate him by way of dress and hairstyle. And so I grew up either hearing him say hello darling, nice to see you or doing this sort of, you know, is it vaudeville style or just. Just sort of a over the top modeling style I guess is Modeling the way you'd say it. Modeling.
- [40:58]
Michelle Press
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 on one of Braddock's most famous songs. He stopped loving her today.
- [41:16]
Priscilla Presley
The recitation, like, she came to see him one last time. Oh, we all wondered if she would. You could sing that. She came to see him one last time.
- [41:36]
Elvis Presley
Oh, we all wonder if she would.
- [41:40]
Priscilla Presley
And that works either way. But this is just like, we got this song. Let's get a recitation. Throw it in there. And Elvis made it work. And I'm thinking, just instinctively, just because he was. He was just so good.
- [41:55]
Michelle Press
Recitations are unusual these days. Braddock hasn't written one since something he did for Toby Keith in the 1990s.
- [42:02]
Priscilla Presley
Last successful recitation song I had was actually. Well, actually, it was a hip hop thing. I won't talk about me, but that was talking, talking Toby Keith.
- [42:12]
Malcolm Gladwell
That's what I'm thinking about.
- [42:13]
Priscilla Presley
But, you know, it's all.
- [42:15]
Michelle Press
Wait, can you play a little slice of that? Do you remember?
- [42:19]
Malcolm Gladwell
I could pretend to Toby Keith.
- [42:20]
Michelle Press
I never do that.
- [42:21]
Priscilla Presley
I never do that. When I do that, I always do it with a karaoke thing where I get up there and play the. I want to talk about me. We're gonna talk about. I want to talk about number one. Or now. You talk about your work, how your boss is a jerk. You talk about your church and your head when it hurts. Talk about the trouble you've been having with your mother and your daddy, with your brother and your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex lover, you.
- [42:45]
Michelle Press
Know.
- [42:49]
Malcolm Gladwell
But it fits that.
- [42:50]
Priscilla Presley
And then the menstrual period line, which everybody said, you can't put that in a song. Nobody will ever cut it, you know. And it was one of the biggest songs they ever had about your medical charts. And when you start, yeah, take that out. Nobody will record it. Toby Keith did. He's probably the only one who would have, though.
- [43:12]
Michelle Press
Then I showed them the prize. I brought it in my bag. My copy of the Handbook of Psychobiography containing the Heller and Elms essay. Hold on. I have my book here. I'll tell you.
- [43:25]
Priscilla Presley
Oh, that's fascinating.
- [43:26]
Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah, that is fascinating.
- [43:28]
Michelle Press
To a pair of Elvis fanatics. It was like I'd unearthed the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- [43:33]
Priscilla Presley
What's the book?
- [43:34]
Michelle Press
It's a book called Handbook of Psychobiography. And it has an essay on this song.
- [43:39]
Priscilla Presley
Wow. Psychobiography.
- [43:41]
Michelle Press
And so. Yeah. So here's. So this guy has gone through. He made a chart of all of the lyrical mistakes that Elvis made in every known live recording.
- [43:53]
Priscilla Presley
Oh, my gosh.
- [43:54]
Michelle Press
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 we've been talking about?
- [44:06]
Malcolm Gladwell
That's so interesting. I wrote a song about my mother called somebody something. And my mother is adorable. And 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? Why aren't we the only person in the family that there's nothing I have it written about. So I was 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, it says, you know, she's always been somebody, something. She's lived every life but her own, and it's gone. I cannot remember it right now.
- [44:44]
Priscilla Presley
I don't know that feeling.
- [44:45]
Malcolm Gladwell
I can't remember it. There's always been somebody, Sometimes been everything but alone. A daughter, a mother, a life, a.
- [44:54]
Unknown Speaker
Daughter, a lover, a wife and a mother. She's lived every life but her own.
- [45:00]
Malcolm Gladwell
Yes. She's always been somebody, something. And there's a line that says, you know, she wonders what it might be like to be somebody else, and she wonders what it feels like to be free. But she's always imagined being nobody's nothing, and that's something she'd 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.
- [45:30]
Michelle Press
Wait, what's the specific line that's gone? Is which one what's gone again?
- [45:37]
Malcolm Gladwell
She's always been somebody, so there's been everything but alone. Daughter, lover. A daughter, a lover, a wife and a mother. She's been everything but alone. Yeah. Yeah.
- [45:51]
Michelle Press
Why is it that long?
- [45:52]
Malcolm Gladwell
I don't know. I think that. I don't know. I think when you. 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 of.
- [46:10]
Michelle Press
A minute before, we were joking about Toby Keith. Now Casey is pensive as she compares her mother's life to her own.
- [46:20]
Malcolm Gladwell
Not being able to make a relationship work. The first 18,000 times out of the gate or, you know, officially the first two. And not being a mother and.
- [46:29]
Priscilla Presley
But still real close to her, right?
- [46:31]
Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah. Love her.
- [46:33]
Priscilla Presley
Go to church with her, right?
- [46:34]
Michelle Press
I do.
- [46:35]
Malcolm Gladwell
I sit still because she makes me.
- [46:37]
Barbara Walters
And I stay awake and it's of kind.
- [46:39]
Elvis Presley
Good.
- [46:40]
Malcolm Gladwell
Funny.
- [46:40]
Priscilla Presley
When I was. When I was a kid, if I'd get bored in church and my mother would reach down and pinch me, you know.
- [46:46]
Malcolm Gladwell
Oh, I got smacked.
- [46:47]
Michelle Press
Wait, Casey, can you play that song for us? Is it going to be two?
- [46:51]
Malcolm Gladwell
Let's see.
- [46:53]
Unknown Speaker
Okay.
- [46:55]
Malcolm Gladwell
Okay. Well, we'll see if this happens.
- [47:11]
Unknown Speaker
She grew up playing cowgirl.
- [47:14]
Barbara Walters
In a.
- [47:15]
Unknown Speaker
Railroad town Dreaming she'd see.
- [47:19]
Malcolm Gladwell
Oh, shoot. Hold on. There's a little line about Elvis in this that's just random. Hold on. Dream and see Chi. Hollywood. I'm gonna do. What did I just say? Sorry. I'm thinking about Mom. She grew up playing cowgirl she grew.
- [47:46]
Unknown Speaker
Up playing cowgirl in a railroad town Dreaming she'd see Hollywood someday She knew some distant Friday night With a cigarette to hold just right Fate would come and carry her away as as far as she could see from there those were just the bags.
- [48:20]
Malcolm Gladwell
That's not right. Hold one second.
- [48:28]
Michelle Press
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. 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.
- [49:04]
Unknown Speaker
She married in December, maybe water in a dress her mama made. She looked all grown up standing there like that. Had a honeymoon in Memphis town yeah, she looked for Elvis all around. Made love in the Greyhound coming back as far as she could see from there, those were just the facts of life. He went from somebody's daughter, somebody's wife.
- [49:47]
Michelle Press
Parapraxis is not failure. When the performer slips, the audience is not cheated. It's the opposite. Parapraxis is a gift. 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. 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. 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 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.
- [51:11]
Unknown Speaker
She's always been somebody, something. She's been everything but love. Daughter, daughter, lover, a wife and a mother. She's lived every life but her own. She'd say, that's just called being a woman. She's always there. Somebody, some.
- [51:56]
Michelle Press
God, it's beautiful. Why are you covering your mouth?
- [52:00]
Malcolm Gladwell
I'm just. It's just weird 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 a rap from new edition from 1982, like, why is that in there? And something that you wrote is not in there. That is so weird.
- [52:27]
Michelle Press
It's not weird. A lesser person would have sung it perfectly. Thank you for listening to season three 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 Mia LaBelle with Jacob Smith and Camille Baptista. Our editor is Julia Barton. Flawn Williams is is our engineer. Fact checking by Beth Johnson. Original music by Luis Guerra. Special thanks to Kim Green and Hal Humphries of Storyboard EMP in Nashville and here in New York, thanks to Jason Gambrell, Evan Viola, Rachel Strom, Nicole Bunsis, Kate Mescal, Kristin Meinzer, Carly Migliori, Andy Bowers, and of course, el jefe Jacob Weisberg. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Okay.
- [54:07]
Bobby Braddock
So it be.
- [54:07]
Michelle Press
I wonder if you're lonesome tonight. You know someone said that the world's a stage and each must play a part. Fate had me playing in love you was my sweetheart. Pac one was when we met I loved you at first glance you read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue Then came act two. You seemed 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 Then 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 doing Nice?
- [55:18]
Elvis Presley
Very good.
- [55:19]
Michelle Press
I'm not very musical.
- [55:20]
Bobby Braddock
No, it's very good. It's good.
- [55:22]
Michelle Press
Yeah.
- [55:25]
Malcolm Gladwell
This is an I Heart podcast.