“Danny Boy” is a famous folk song whose meaning is shrouded in mystery. Some argue the words are about a parent calling their child home to their bedside before death. Others say it’s about a man gone to war, leaving behind a love who longs for his return. It’s the right kind of sad song and Elvis gives it the right touch, with not too much opera. Jarvis’ production is solid too, as he avoids overdoing the arrangement like he’d done on many others from this session. The master that was included on the album is solid, but it’s what wasn’t included that is so sad. Elvis calls for the song to be tried in the key of D, but when he failed to hit the first high note early into the song, he apologized to everyone and asked it be lowered to C, saying meekly “I have too much crap in me. I’ll do it better in C.”
His defeated recognition that his body was no longer able to keep up with his musical ambitions, largely as a result of his abuses, is the saddest part of this whole somber-soaked session.
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“Never Again” is almost generic enough to be listened to once and instantly forgotten, but one moment will etch it into your memory: Near the end of the song, at about the 2:12 mark, Elvis moves in for the big finish, and sings the title “never…ever…never…again” and the wobble in his voice is so distracting, so poor and so out of tune, it’s the single worst note the man ever recorded in his career.
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Jerry Chesnut had given Elvis two songs in the 1975 session, a strong rocker “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” and an insulting ballad “Woman Without Love.” Unfortunately, he only had one contribution this time, and even more unfortunately it wasn’t a strong rocker. It wasn’t an insulting ballad, though, so it was at least an improvement on “Woman Without Love.” Actually, “Love Coming Down” is far from the worst song Elvis attempted during the week. It isn’t as slow and depressed as many others and Elvis’s voice is stronger here than on the previous song. The lyrics are nothing special, about a man realizing his love is about to abandon him and how he regrets being too caught up in the hustle and bustle of life to see that “love” was “coming down.” Obviously Elvis scooped up the seemingly autobiographical words and gave it as much as he had to give. The end result is an okay song but not much more than that.
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“Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” is another classic country song. It’s been covered by so many legends of the genre you could almost write a history of country music just by listening to Roy Acuff’s first version (accordion accompaniment and all), then Hank Williams’ 1947 take and finally Willie Nelson’s version from 1975.
Elvis version doesn’t even attempt to add to the legacy; instead, Felton Jarvis arranges it like it’s every other late-70’s Elvis song. By and large, Jarvis favored a uniformity to all of Elvis’s music, so that songs from one year could be played next to songs from another and the untrained ear would not know the difference. In an era where artists were using their LPs to experiment with new sounds, styles and themes with every release, Elvis was firmly entrenched in the past. He came from the era when LPs were considered afterthoughts; where songs not worthy of single release were slotted. By 1976, however, singles were released to push sales of the album, not the other way around.
No one involved with Elvis’s recordings—not RCA, not Felton Jarvis or Colonel Parker, not even Elvis himself—ever reasoned out that a big contributor to his slumping LP sales (in an era where LP sales were climbing higher every year) was the lazy approach given to them. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” deserved better than the “usual Elvis” treatment. It’s a fine cut of a classic record, but it—like so much of Elvis’s other 1970’s output—could have been much more.
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With twelve songs finished and two songs held off for later use, Jarvis had enough material for one LP. He had hoped to push Elvis to record all twenty songs needed for the year’s quota, but an aborted attempt to record a master of “America” had soured Elvis’s mood enough that it would be no use trying. Jarvis penciled him in for another Graceland recording in the fall, and left Elvis to return to Las Vegas and touring.
