"Ode to a Robin"

[ForrestGump]

As I awoke this morning
When all sweet things are born
A robin perched on my windowsill
To greet the coming dawn
He sang his song so sweetly
And paused for a moment's lull
I gently raised the window
And crushed his f***ing skull

- Elvis Presley, 1974



Actually, a Google search reveals that it's probably Elvis' take on an oldie, variants of which were undoubtedly around long ago. Still, his reading of it is pretty classic. Probably not on the list of recordings that RCA-BMG is itching to release...

[datasuspect]

1. this has to be my favorite elvis song

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray chicago mornin’
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
’cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need
It’s another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

People, don’t you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me,
Are we too blind to see,
Do we simply turn our heads
And look the other way

Well the world turns
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto

And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal
And he learns how to fight
In the ghetto

Then one night in desperation
A young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car,
Tries to run, but he don’t get far
And his mama cries

As a crowd gathers ’round an angry young man
Face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto

As her young man dies,
On a cold and gray chicago mornin’,
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto

[WCGreen]

3. I have committed that song to memory.....

for a ten year old kid, that and Zager and Evans 2525 were the epitome of heaviness........ Man

[ForrestGump]

4. Mac Davis wrote that and

a fair few other songs for Elvis in the same time period (1968-69). At the same Memphis sessions that produced "In The Ghetto," Elvis did Mac Davis' "Don't Cry, Daddy." The song is basically about a man whose children are trying to console in the wake of their mother's death but Mac wrote the song after seeing TV reports from Vietnam and based the title on what one of his children said at the time.

I read long ago that "In The Ghetto" was offered first to Sammy Davis Jr but that he couldn't get a good feel for the song. Don't know if that's how it happened, but Elvis was a more natural choice than he might have at first seemed, given that he grew up on (literally) the wrong side of the tracks in Depression-era Mississippi, a poor white kid living in a rural 'ghetto' who, when he moved to the big city of Memphis, dwelt in fairly dire public housing projects.


Interesting interview with Mac Davis

[XemaSab]

2. poo-em

A MINOR BIRD

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

[ForrestGump]

5. Frosty the Poem-man

:-)

I like that one, too.

[XemaSab]

6. aye

frost is a grim, grim poet.

and I love him for it!

[Wetzelbill]

7. Beautiful