Two Legendary and Weird Rock 'N' Roll Moments

He had an idea.  Oh, yes.

1. Elvis Presley's "naughty first take" of "Blue Suede Shoes"

Elvis always had a randy sense of humor, and this was quite evident in some recent unearthed tapes of him recording Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes," which, of course became a big hit for him. But Elvis's first few attempts had him wanting to sing one of the lines a bit differently. The following is studio chatter between Elvis and the recording engineer.

Elvis: "Hey man, let's do something different with this one line."

Engineer: "Which one?"

EP: "Right here, where it goes 'You can burn my house, steal my car, drink my liquor from an old fruit jar.'"

E:  "OK, what did you have in mind?"

EP: "I thought it'd be better if I sang "Drink my pee pee from an old fruit jar."

E: "What?"

EP: "Yeah."

E: "I don't...I don't quite...'Drink my pee pee from an old fruit jar'?"

EP: "Yeah, man. Let's just try it. I wanna hear it that way and if it's no good we'll take it straight."

E: "All right...'Blue Suede Shoes, Take One.'"

And so Elvis runs through three incomplete takes of this version with everyone else busting out laughing every time. Apparently, Presley wasn't amused.

EP: "I don't know what you're laughin' at. This is probably gonna be a hit!"

Two more aborted attempts later, Elvis decides to record it the way it was written. The rest is history.

Sing about it loud and proud, Robert.

2. Led Zeppelin's sound check of "In My Time of Dying" in Chicago

Led Zep had been working and re-working "In My Time of Dying" for quite a while by the time this chestnut was recorded during a sound check in Chicago. During the big part where Robert Plant usually started his "Oh my Jesus" plea, this time he had a different idea.

"I'm gonna go for it all this time, Jonesy!" he says excitedly. Next thing you know, Plant starts chanting the following mantra, 15 times in a row:

"Oh my penis! Oh my penis! Oh my penis! Whoa my penis!"

This seemed more like something Jim Morrison would have done, but the band went right along with it, not missing a beat. After the song ends, Plant says,

"I'm all sticky. Yeah, groovy."

Weird.

White People Fuck Up Black Music, Vol. 1

Listen to this:



Now listen to how it got fucked:



Thanks for nothing, Elvis.

Will Elvis still be relevant after all the old rockers are dead?

Who's going to carry the King's torch? Will it be you? I'm sure as hell not going to do it. But once the likes of Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Little Richard, Pete Townshend, and the rest of that old lot are finally dead and gone, who the hell is going to care about Elvis?

Seriously. The farther away we get from his explosion onto the rock world to his demise as a bloated Vegas also-ran, the quicker we are to forget. He's going to become that afterthought in the same way poor Bill Haley has become much of nothing in the eyes and ears of today's youth.

Yes, I'm bringing it down to the youth. When I was working not so long ago with a bunch of kids in their late teens/early twenties who would often spout things like, "I don't get the Beatles. What's so great about them? Their music isn't good." then I have zero hope for Elvis.

If anything, Elvis will continue to go down as a mocked, parodied, and ridiculed dude. And it's not as if his fans ever truly helped the cause, what with a million and one impersonators and folks who still flock to Graceland to see his tacky shit laid out like it was something truly remarkable. In this day and age of instant celebrity, Elvis is becoming more and more of a footnote. As in, "Oh yeah, that guy who sang 'Blue Suede Shoes' and liked pills." But hasn't that how it's been since the '70s?

So when all the old rock critics and musicians have dried up and blown away, we're going to be left with people like Bono to talk about, which is far worse. I mean, that guy has never done anything interesting. You need pills and a revolver, kids. A child bride and a kooky entourage who won't tell you your own shit stinks because its members like being on the dole. Go out to Vegas and die and leave a legacy that other people can cash in on with shitty little trinkets and other crap. That's rock and roll? Nah, that's just Elvis.