- Part One: 1954-1955 (In the Beginning…)
- Part Two: 1956-1957 (Peak Presley)
- Part Three: 1958-1959 (Out of Sight)
- Part Four: 1960-1962 (Tug of War)
- Part Five: 1963-1964 (Ten Years In…)
PART SIX: WHEN IT RAINS IT REALLY POURS
On August 27, 1965, Elvis invited into his Bel Air California home the four men who had recently supplanted him as the ultimate force to be reckoned with in music: The Beatles. Technically the meeting was arranged by Col. Parker, in a shrewd move to look friendly with the new competition, so as not to force fanbases to draw battle lines against one another. While the young rock stars were excited to meet one of their idols, Elvis could not have been more disinterested. The foursome walked into his living room to find Elvis sitting on his couch, watching TV with the sound off and piddling with an unplugged bass guitar (a sight which likely excited Paul more than seeing Priscilla walk down the stairs with a tiara and gown looking like a Disney Princess). The Beatles sat down around the living room and…and uncomfortable silence followed.
Finally, after an eternity of nothing, Elvis said “well do you guys wanna play something or just sit here?” At that, the guitars were passed around (Ringo clapped I’m sure) and a jam session followed. After a few hours, Elvis rose and declared the night ended. Paul invited him to come over to their temporary home, northwest of Beverly Hills, to party the next night. Elvis didn’t go, of course, but several of his lackeys did (of course). When they returned the told Elvis that John had a message for him. He said, “Tell Elvis that without him, there would be no Beatles.”
That’s a sweet thing to say, especially for the often-sardonic Lennon, but at the same time, it sort of subconsciously put Elvis in the past. It framed him as the foundation on which the next generation of contemporary talents was built. Elvis was still toiling away making pointless movies with worthless soundtracks. The Beatles had movies too—A Hard Day’s Night was already out, to great success, and Help! was soon to follow—but their movies had a carefree, almost improvised nature to them, a perfect complement to their boyish antics. Elvis’s movies were factory stamped, formulaic and dry. Everything about them felt…engineered and carefully controlled, whereas everything John, Paul, George, and Ringo did felt spontaneous, a fact which Elvis’s commented on to Priscilla, lamenting the freedom they had with their various projects “just to be themselves.”
The two icons of the industry never met again. The Beatles would soon be flying back to London to put the finishing touches on the album that would evolve their sound (for the first time): the inspired Rubber Soul LP.
What was Elvis working on around this time?
Tickle Me.
His frustration was probably never more realized than when, during their one-off meetup, John asked Elvis “when are you going to make another Rock-n-Roll album?” Elvis had no answer except to say “they” (his manager, producers, handlers, etc) had him doing too much of “this and that.”
Like Tickle Me.
The film was produced hastily. In fact, everything about it was done on the cheap, to get it made as effortless and inexpensively as possible. It was a story of mutual desperation: Elvis was in the middle of financial trouble: He owed a lot of money to the IRS and, while he kept buying houses, cars even entire ranches, the money to support his spending wasn’t what it was in the past; those album sales weren’t what the once were either.
Meanwhile, the film company Allied Artists was facing possible bankruptcy. They needed a hit to pull their heads above water. The two struck a (again, hasty) deal which saw Elvis secure a $750,000 paycheck (literally 65% of the entire film budget) as well as 50% of the film’s profits. To keep things profitable (i.e. cheap), the movie was shot entirely on a soundstage, and the soundtrack featured a hodgepodge assortment of previously-released, non-movie material. And yet, despite the studio seemingly throwing darts on a board to pick out their songs, two singles broke the easy-listening top-20, with “Just an Easy Question” (originally recorded for 1962’s Pot Luck album) coming in at #11.
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And yet, terrible and cheap (in every way) though it was, the plan worked: The film raked in five million dollars at the box office. It made more than Blue Hawaii. Just stop and think about that. It was soulless and ham-fisted but it made money (and sure enough, staved off Allied Artists’ bankruptcy fears). No wonder Parker pressed on with his current business model.
Harum Scarum might just represent the nadir of the “Elvis visits _____ locale” theme. He had been to New Orleans, to Hawaii, to Mexico, to Las Vegas, back to Hawaii, to the Circus, to the Fair, to jail. He’d been everywhere, and now he was going to….the generically-named “Middle East.”
Just read the official synopsis:
American movie star Johnny Tyrone goes to the Middle East to premiere his new picture. He is seduced by the lovely Aishah, then kidnapped by a man who wants Johnny to help him kill the king. Johnny encounters a slave girl, Shalimar, who turns out to actually be the king’s daughter. When he helps restore order to the government, Johnny and his new royal bride honeymoon in Las Vegas, along with a few of her dancing girls.
There’s nothing else to add.
The soundtrack was, to that point, the worst he’d ever recorded, although he would soon top it. The songs were filled with corny cliches, puns and stereotypical “Arabian-flavored” instruments like tambourines and oboes. Some songs stand out, for good or ill. “So Close Yet So Far (From Paradise)” is pretty subdued, but it reaches a nice crescendo throughout and especially at the end. It has a mildly-curious structure as well; it’s not “Surrender” but it’s not “Barefoot Ballad” either. The rest of the songs all run together, they all have the same sound, the same pun-ladened lyrics, the same obviously-bored Elvis, whose voice by now was clearly much more gruff and deeper than he was forced to let on here. He’s singing in the same smooth style that he used so effectively half-a-decade ago, but the songs and his voice just aren’t the same. He needed new material and a new—more natural—way of singing it. But that was still a year away.
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