Elvis was obviously a great performer and he probably sang live thousands of times. Doing anything from Hound-dog to "can't help falling in love with you"
He invented the genre; he did it all from love songs to rock and roll
The guy was born to be a performer, maybe the best of all time. Women swooned over him, dudes swooned, too.
And he had hits and then he had songs that were bigger than hits. They were iconic. He changed music and he performed every night for decades
Some songs he loved, some he loathed, some he knew the fans loved, some they just liked and some he was apathetic to
But there was one song that destroyed him.
He comes into a studio one night at like midnight as the record producer had a new song he had to record, he stumbles through it because he's drunk and basically nails it on the first take including this weird middle bridge section where it's sort of spoken word
He hates the song, it's depressing but whatever they are paying him, he's loaded (financially) and likely loaded. It's just another tune in a catalogue of hundreds and he'll dutifully sing it when the set lists calls for it
It's the late 70s I guess, he's gotten fat and sweaty and disgusting and his marriage to Pricilla is falling apart. Basically he's banging all the tail he can get his fat sweaty hands on and she is too but one day she tells him that she's fallen in love with somebody else. The cheating he can deal with but the fact that she gave her heart away, he can't.
The divorce is Hollywood messy I guess, but whatever he's The King and there are thousands of chicks as hot as Pricilla and he's in Vegas nightly with chicks throwing panties at him while he's tits deep in the all you can eat buffet.
And one night right after he got the call fromPricilla that she is leaving him, the set list calls for Are You Lonesome Tonight and he rocks the first two minutes. He's going low baritone, he's crescendoing up as he hits the chorus and the fat chick love it. But finally he gets to that middle part, the weird spoke word section. It speaks about the singer asking his lover if she is lonesome now that he's gone and for every other sappy love song this fat fuck has to sing, for all the weird choruses and bridges, this is the bridge that breaks him
He gets to the part and starts laughing. This is the deepest part of the song, the part where Vader reveals that he's Luke's father. This is it. And he freezes and can't finish it and starts going gibberish.
The next night the set calls for it again and he falls apart
The next night he starts doing B-I- n-g-o and bingo was his name when he can't hold it together
Think Chuck Knoblauch, think Mackey Sasser
He can't hold it together, he's laughing and crying and spitting lasagna all over the stage and it's just odd
This is the King and he can't finish a lame song and he can't explain why and he goes and tries it night after night convincing his backup band and the guys paying the bills he can get through it and he can't. Every. Single. Time that spoken word comes on he starts blubbering
People say drugs, hamburgers and living a fast life killed The King but it was Pricilla who broke him and Are You Lonesome Tonight was the candlestick.
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