April–May 1960
Because of my arbitrary starting date of August 1958, I won't be covering most of Elvis's biggest hits. Ask someone to hum a bar of an Elvis song, and 9 times out of 10 they'll come up with "Hound Dog," "Don't Be Cruel," or another of his many smash hits that were popular before the Hot 100 chart existed. But even so, he had 6 number ones in the 60s – it's pretty remarkable that he was able to chart with some kind of regularity, all the way up to his death in 1977, 21 years after his first big hit, "Heartbreak Hotel."
So it's interesting that so far, both of the Elvis songs I've covered (this and "Big Hunk o' Love") were previously unfamiliar to me. Two of the biggest hits of the best-selling solo artist of all time, and I'd never heard them. Success in one's time doesn't guarantee that a song will be remembered, as we've seen with many other songs already. Why are his earlier hits so much more familiar in my lifetime?
Well, for one thing, they were more original. "Heartbreak Hotel" was pretty different from what else was out there in 1956, and you could probably say the same about a number of his other songs. On the other hand, "Stuck on You" is, musically, more or less the same exact song as his earlier hit "All Shook Up." By 1960 Elvis was still a mainstay of the zeitgeist, but his performances weren't as shocking as they had been 5 years earlier. He'd settled in his ways.
So a lot of his early 60s songs have a sort of "crankin' out the hits" kind of feel to them, in that he didn't really progress any more artistically, even though he continued to dominate the charts. The people knew what they liked and by golly, he gave it to them. This certainly isn't a bad song. You can be damn sure I'd rather listen to this than the Summer Place theme.
Other observations:
- Elvis is apparently "stuck on you" against your will – you can hide in the kitchen, hide in the hall, ain't gonna do you no good at all. This conjures up some bizarre imagery of Elvis as some kind of gremlin, holding on for dear life.
- He uses "yessiree" when addressing a woman.
- The way he says "GRIZZ-a-lee bear" is probably my favorite part of the song.
B
hi wes! it's noelle, i finally made my way over here and i'm digging your blog so far.
ReplyDeletei have to say though, although i like your interpretation, i think "yessiree" probably means something like "that's right" and is not a direct reference to a lady. oh well!