songs:365

Tag: elvis-presley

  • day 356: Blue Christmas

    Blue Christmas, by Elvis Presley.

    And on the 356th day of the year, we return to this song, which kicked off this whole project when my wife gave me a ring light last Christmas, and the first thing I could think to try it out was a short recording of Blue Christmas. I posted a bit of it to my Instagram story, and a few of you liked it, I guess?

    When I decided to do some pandemic content, a song a day made sense. I considered Insta, but didn’t want to give Zuck all that content for free. Instead, I’ve done most of this project using WordPress (and in fact, WordPress.com, with a premium plan that allows for lots of video hosting), except for a handful of songs posted from vacations and other locations that were just plain easier to upload to YouTube and embed here.

    I have some ideas of what to do on Jan. 1 and after with alllllll thissss contenttttttt but also I will probably not do a “thing every day” in 2022, unless it’s, like, a picture of the new dog every day, which could be amusing as she grows, but also I will do something close to that anyway, and idk if I have the stamina to be a “dog content” person.

    Tags:

  • day 193: Blue Moon

    Blue Moon, by Elvis Presley.

    Um, I guess it’s “In My Feels”-structure week here at the ol’ songs365 project, but there you have it.

    Obviously a cover-of-a-cover, but who wrote Blue Moon, really?

    [wikipedia noises]

    Oh, it’s Rodgers and Hart, and not controversial, I guess. OK! Seems like they kept trying to use the melody in musicals where it didn’t fit, and oh, just to tie it together with Mystery Train, the Elvis version of this song appears in the Jarmusch movie as a plot device. I hope that’s not a spoiler. I prefer Down By Law, anyway.

    //

    Just one extra guitar and one extra vocal because I am trying to get better at adding fewer things when it makes more sense. The Elvis record is sparse AF, although listening to it now on headphones, there’s a bunch of reverby echoey stuff going on in the vocal, which I imagine was some fun physical analog tape trick, or a characteristic of the actual space. Also it sounds like somebody is playing two coconuts, Holy Grail-style, to make it sound like a cowboy movie.

    Tags: ,

  • day 185: Mystery Train

    Mystery Train, by Elvis Presley.

    It’s July Fourth, and what’s more American than Elvis stealing a song from a black man, goofing around dropping it as a b-side on a silly ballad, and having it make lots of “best songs of the century” long lists, 50 years later.

    This song is fun, though, and 1956 seems like a long time ago, so we’ll let it ride.

    //

    Recorded in a super cute Airbnb’d house in Lewisburg, WV, and inspired by checking out a waterfall and hike near some railroad tracks today, but also, once you’re invested in train songs, best to keep the streak alive. Gotta love songs that count the number of cars on the train — feels like maybe I need to do Johnny Cash tomorrow?

    Also: Uploading 300MB+ videos from the road is… interesting… Last night’s was from my phone on burrito spot wifi. Today, the 2MB up internet is choking hard when I try to upload to Media Library directly, but uploading to Google Drive from my phone seemed to work OK, though I couldn’t find a way to embed that, and now I’m uploading it from my phone to YouTube, so that’s why there’s a YouTube embed this time around, which I’ve really actively been avoiding. Because YouTube. :shrug:

    Tags: ,

  • day 5: Love Me

    Love Me by Elvis Presley

    Well, I couldn’t mention it yesterday without singing it soon, so here it is. This song was on the Heartbreak Hotel soundtrack — yes, an ’80s movie about kidnapping Elvis and fixing him up with your mom — and looking back at the credits, it wasn’t even Elvis singing it on the cassette I wore out?

    OK, actor who played Elvis, or probably singer who did the vocals for the actor, look, I’m not sure if the version I remember is yours or Elvis Presley’s, but I loved that song and never heard it anywhere else.

    I know my guitar teacher wrote the chords out for me on this one in F, because I have it in my old Mel Bay spiral manuscript book somewhere between Stairway to Heaven and Hotel California.

    But that F barre chord is a jerk, so I learned it in E.

    This took a few takes, mostly because the more I ham up the performance, the harder time I have getting the parts in the right order. Added a couple backup singers who don’t know harmonies on the final chorus because otherwise I just mumble-hum it anyway. But didn’t bother mixing it properly.

    Oh, also, different camera angle today.

    Tags: