...(some Elvis songs I recorded) but I didn't get a chance to record them or anything else until the past couple of days.
American Trilogy (live, 1972-1977) MP3 - 5.78 MB; 4:06)
America, The Beautiful (live, 1975-1976) MP3 - 3.33 MB; 2:22)
Change Of Habit (1969, from the film Change Of Habit) MP3 - 4.72 MB; 3:21)
"American Trilogy" was written by Mickey Newbury as a kind of ironic piece, combining "Dixie" and "Battle Hymn Of The Republic" with the Appalachian folk song "All My Trials," but Elvis made it a kind of anthem when he premiered it in Las Vegas in 1972. He did it as a regular part of his show until midway through 1975 but never recorded it in the studio (other than during rehearsals held in recording studios before tours and Vegas seasons). For some reason, I got fixated on going for the ending that Elvis did circa 1973 rather than the slightly less ambitious final notes on his earlier iterations of the song...I eventually got it, or close enough that I was ready to call it quits, but it hurt like hell and -- as a result -- I don't think I can have children now. :-(
I found it really hard to avoid singing "Disneyland" in place of "Dixieland," which is something Elvis did a time or two ("look away, look away, look away...Disneyland"), because I pretty much always love hearing Elvis do versions of songs when he's messing around with the lyrics and when I sang this song on the job last year I invariably found myself singing the Disneyland version even when I didn't mean to. Hard not to.
Elvis added "America, The Beautiful" to his repertoire during his engagement in Las Vegas in December of 1975 and performed it throughout the bicentennial year, doing it for the last time at his (legendary, truly excellent) New Years Eve show in Pittsburgh, PA as 1976 turned to 1977 and the end of the road for Elvis. After much speculation and evidence-digging for years by people who concern themselves with such things (including yours truly), it turned out that Elvis did actually record this one in a session, in Graceland in February of 1976 (where he did his last sessions in the Jungle Room, with an RCA mobile recording truck parked in back), but -- as suspected -- the original tape was erased...they released the last part of the song on a collectors' CD, claiming it's all that was left. I've heard through the rumor grapevine that someone erased the tape because Elvis sang it as a bitter and ironically disillusioned statement on how f***ed up the US was by 1976 (today we can look around and see 1976 as the Good Old Days, of course...same with 19
96, for that matter) which, if true, makes me want to hear it even more... :D
Actually, Elvis laid down an X-rated version of "Hurt" during the same session (the infamous 'take 69' of the song), so it's entirely possible that he also slipped in an irreverent "America, The Beautiful." His producer's wife burned the original tape of the naughty "Hurt" in her backyard after her husband died, not wanting such racy stuff to get out, but we get to hear it nowadays thanks to a rough reference tape (that somehow showed up, courtesy of the bootleggers, a few years ago) recorded on a regular cassette recorder by one of Elvis' band members.
A version of "America, The Beautiful" recorded from the soundboard in Vegas in 1975 (no multitrack stereo recordings were made of this song, though many of Elvis' '70s concerts were recorded from the mixing board and some of these tapes have surfaced with bootleggers in the past decade or so) was released soon after Elvis' death as the flipside to a version of "My Way" recorded on his final tour. It was also released in 2001 as part of a special CD in the wake of 9/11, paired with 1968's "If I Can Dream," and went to number six on
Billboard's singles chart (with all proceeds donated to the American Red Cross).
"Change Of Habit" is a movie song (from the 1969 film of the same name, Elvis' last scripted movie, wrapped a few months before he made his return to the stage) that isn't particularly about America, but it's been going around in my head for quite a while now and when doing so, lately, I've been thinking of it in relation to the US. It's a kind of a funky and groovy 'message song' and the message is one that the US, as a nation, could heed with respect to what this country is up to these days. Anyway, I always liked the song a lot and thought it got kind of ignored when it came out, most likely because it came at a point when Elvis was finally ditching the movies and going back to his element, the concert stage.
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