Elvis Presley may have ended his days looking like a beached whale, drowning in sweat and stinking of beef burgers, but before his stomach exploded on the toilet and took the ‘King of Rock n’ roll’ from this mortal coil, the boy from Memphis showed everyone and their dawg godammit, just how a song should be sung.
Whether he was crooning sentimentally, rocking raucously, snarling provocatively, loving us tenderly, or whispering to us melancholy, the trucker like no other fucker could carry a tune. In stark contrast to his overblown and clown like Las Vegas image, vocally, Elvis rarely over-cooked or under played a song but always managed to find that exquisite balance between emotive gymnastics and subtle nuances in his high, lonely and earthy voice.
Since his death in 1977, there’s been a lot of great songs the King could have potentially covered and added a new Southern fried flavour too. Let’s imagine for a moment, an alternate universe where Elvis didn’t die but was merely frozen in time like Walt Disney.
Picture the scene. It’s December 20, 2012 and for last 24 hours the global news media has been going plum crazy with the sensational story that Elvis hasn’t been alive all these years but he hasn’t been dead either. He’s merely been preserved like a rock n’ roll pickle after choosing at the grand old age of 42 to be frozen in a cryonic chamber full of liquid nitrogen.
But wait it gets better, a lot better. It transpires that Elvis opted to deep freeze himself like a Birdseye beefburger because he believed, like a lot of people, not least the Mayans, that a cataclysmic and transformative event of earth shattering proportions would take place on December 21, 2012, and he wanted to be around on the eve of that great day to deliver his comeback concert.
So just imagine all you Presleyites. The stage is set for the biggest comeback of them all, Elvis, due to huge technological advancements has been unfrozen and is cool as ever. News has been announced of his comeback concert, and people from all corners of the globe are tuning into watch Elvis live from Madison Square Garden as he delivers the gig that people have been waiting 35 years to witness. Is it all just a clever marketing trip or is Elvis actually ushering in the age of a new cosmic era like some self-fulfilling pot-bellied, Vegas prophet dripping in sweat and reeking of onions? One can only speculate. But as the lucky fans gather in front of the actual stage and people everywhere gather in front of movie screens and TV to watch the main event broadcasted, a message is leaked and quickly goes viral. It leaves some fans gasping in delight and others choking in horror. The message reads, “As the King of rock n’ roll Mr Elvis Presley has been officially dead for 35 years, and has only woken up 21 days ago. He has been overwhelmed by all the great music that has been created since he was put on ice. Therefore he feels it is only appropriate that he begins tonight’s set with ten of the best songs he has heard since he thawed out, in honour of all those great artists who have kept the spirit of rock’n’roll burning bright down through the decades and across the centuries.”
What could the ten songs possibly be people hysterically wonder? Well thanks to his fantastic time travelling machine, El Bastardo can reveal all. So come along amigos and let’s take a sly peek at ten songs Elvis never sung, or perhaps does, in the not too distant future.
I Am The Resurrection
What better way for Elvis to launch his ‘Second Coming’ than with the epic last song of The Stone Roses’ debut album. Ian Brown’s definitely got the swagger to deliver lines such as “I am the Resurrection and I am the light,” but graced by the King’s vocal chords and sung as the first song at his ‘back from the dead’ comeback concert, Elvis would no doubt imbue this classic track’s lyrics with an even more grandiose and perhaps crass meaning.
Geno
After having warmed the crowd up, Elvis obviously wants to maintain the momentum, and he does this by delivering a Memphis horn driven and thunderous version of Dexys Midnight Runners storming tribute to soul singer Geno Washington. Sending the crowd into raptures with the lines, “Academic inspiration, you gave me none, you were Michael the lover, the fighter that won, but now just look at me I'm looking down at you. No, Im not being flash it’s what I’m built to do,” Presley then sends them into carefully manipulated degrees of hysteria with some well rehearsed karate moves.
Under Pressure
Takin things down a notch, Elvis’s bass player cools the unruly crowd with the opening riff of the Queen and David Bowie collaboration Under Pressure. The world stares gobsmacked as Elvis croons the Freddy Mercury lines, “Pressure pushing down on me, splits a family in two, puts people on streets,” and proceeds to gasp in collective disbelief as Bowie himself appears on stage dressed as a pantomime dame in a purple wig and sings his part. Bowie seems to place a new a chilling emphasis on the line, “It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about,” causing collective anxiety about a guest appearance by Vanilla Ice. Thankfully the Ice Baby rapper never materialises to tarnish proceedings with his silly trousers and bizarre haircut, leaving the crowd to joyfully sing along with a tearful Elvis full of soulful yearning and lament, as he demands like a drunken and emotional owner of a small haulage firm, “Why can’t we give love that one more chance?”
No Surprises
Elvis was always attracted to songs with morbid sentiments, so it’s no surprise when he introduces Radiohead’s dirge to desperation and despair as one of his favourites. At first the hardcore Presley fans in the audience react strangely to the opening verse of, “A heart that’s full up like a landfill! A job that slowly kills you. Bruises that won’t heal.” But pretty soon they’re all waving their lighters aloft and warbling along with their King as he snarls, “No alarms and no surprises please,” much like an exotic gypsy prince conducting a bank job.
Sweet Child o’ Mine
After being numbed by the sheer apathy, indifference, and resignation of a Raidohead song, Elvis reignites the crowd by introducing, “A fella whose guitar playing I kinda admire.” Many members of the audience lose all bladder control, and some even consciousness, as Slash, complete with impressive angel wings, is lowered onto the stage by invisible strings as he plays the immortal opening riff from Guns n’ Roses defining track. After the opening however, it’s pretty much downhill as Presley fails to vocally do the song justice, and large swathes of the audience get into fierce debates about why Slash was chosen to duet with Elvis and not Axl Rose.
Walk This Way
Needing something big to recapture the crowd’s undivided attention and reposition himself at the centre of the universe, Elvis tells the gathered assembled, “There’s no way this boy was gonna do any kind of comeback concert if I couldn’t play at least one hip hop song y’all.” Not knowing what to expect and fearing perhaps an Eminem duet is on its way the crowd fall silent. But Elvis plays it safe, and is joined by Jay Z before the pair of them launch into an embarrassing version of Run DMC/Aerosmith’s Walk The Way. Matters are not helped when Elvis attempts to do some sort of hip hop strut halfway through, but ends up slipping and falling flat on his big white ass. Jay Z is routinely booed by the crowd for pointing and bursting into laughter at the King’s fall from glory.
Love will Tear us Apart
No doubt feeling the first strains of existential despair and unbearably low self-esteem wash over him like a tidal wave, Elvis feels every single note and lyric of Joy Division’s ode to doomed love. Quivering like a precious jelly, the King pours his tortured soul into the lines, “When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low, and resentment rides high, but emotions won’t grow.” The audience lap it up and by the song’s end there are tears in Presley’s eyes as he mutters, “Thank-you, thank-you very much. That one was for Ian.”
Guitar Town
Back in the driving seat and riding the euphoria like a seasoned surfer, Presley and his band launch into the rockabilly rawk of Steve Earle’s classic about living on the road in the name of rock n’ roll. The song’s sentiments fit Elvis’s lardy frame like a velvet glove and the audience gush in an intoxicated swoon as their idol busts the moves straight out of 1956 and tells them like a juke joint prophet crazed on moonshine whiskey, “Gotta keep rockin' while I still can, I gotta two pack habit and a motel tan, but when my boots hit the boards I'm a brand new man, with my back to the riser I make my stand.”
Hotel Yorba
Out of his mind on the sort of audience adulation he has obviously missed for far too long, Elvis introduces the White Stripes catchy rocker as a “Real classic which kind of reminds me why Jerry, Johnny, Chuck and I played that old rock n’ roll in the first place.” Demanding that, “everyone get off their asses and jump motherfuckers, jump!” Elvis sounds more punk and primitive than ever as he reels off lines like, “Well its 1 2 3 4 take the elevator at the hotel yorba.” Elvis now owns the crowd and for the rest of the concert he is their unconquerable puppet master.
All Apologies
The last of the covers is perhaps the most surprising of them all. Telling the audience he’s going to sing them a song written by “the most talented fella I never got to share a god damned burger with,” a rueful looking Elvis nods solemnly to himself like a resigned and slightly overweight Greek god as his backing band launch into the haunting intro to the last song on the last Nirvana album. Tellingly Elvis changes the line, “What else could I say? everyone is gay,” to “What else could I say, everyone must pray.” However the song’s refrain of “All in all is all we are,” proves so emotionally draining to Presley that he collapses onto the floor in a heap as the song ends. The world holds its breath for a few seconds before the greatest showman of them all stands up, smiles and winks at the cameras, and simply said in that all too familiar Southern drawl, “Suspicious minds.” The crowd go crazy and so too does Elvis as that familiar guitar signature washes over them all. For the next two hours the King of rock n’ roll is lost in an orgy of karate moves, camp sneers, gyrating hip swivels and his long and industrious back catalogue as everyone waits patiently for something big and universal to happen.
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