Previous Page The next day began with another Gospel song, though this one was never intended to be a master. Elvis was goofing off on the piano before working and broke into a musical version of The Lord’s Prayer. It’s credited as “arranged by Elvis Presley” since he was just piddling on the piano, but really his take is a version of the song arranged by Albert Hay Malotte in 1935, which everyone from Perry Como to Dorris Day and Johnny Mathis recorded. Elvis’s jam is interesting but not particularly remarkable. At one point (2:13 in the video below) he reaches for a high note and clearly misses the hurdle, yet he still calls out “you didn’t think I could do it did you?” In truth, he didn’t hit it, but he believed he did, and everyone agreed with him that he did because no one wanted to upset him or tell him what he didn’t want to hear. And that’s what we call “foreshadowing.” With his vocal cords loose, Elvis turned to eight songs on the docket for the day, six of which were Christmas numbers. “I’ll Be Home on Christmas Day” came first and the version he recorded here would end up on the album, but he would still return to it in a month to record a remix version. This take is more like a country-blues song and is one of the better ones on the record. Jarvis added just enough around Elvis’s voice to give the song some character without overpowering the singer, and Elvis’s voice is strong throughout. It was a good omen for the rest of the day, as he followed it up with “On a Snowy Christmas Night.” It was another original song, as was “The Wonderful World of Christmas” but all three were done well-enough to stand-up to repeated listening alongside the more well-known standards people enjoy hearing during the holidays. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Another folk song broke up the holiday theme, mid-way through the day, as Elvis tackled his first Bob Dylan song since “Tomorrow is a Long Time” in 1966. Back then, Elvis took Dylan’s words and gave them a totally new arrangement. This time, Elvis wanted to give “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” a more traditional folk sound. As with everyone who tries to cover Bob Dylan, there’s no use trying to imitate that one-of-a-kind voice, and his mix of picking-guitar and harmonica is as much of a Dylan trademark as swinging hips and raised lips are to Elvis. To that end, Elvis’s version of the song was nowhere near as sparse, but it was as close to “folk” as Elvis was going to get. He actually went at the song for nearly fifteen minutes and let Felton cut it down to something manageable. Jarvis ended up trimming it into an almost-three minute rendition that is nearly as pleasant to listen to as the original. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Two more Christmas songs ended the day. This time they were public domain spirituals, giving Elvis another “arranged by…” credit (much to the happiness of Col. Parker, as that was cheaper than buying the rights to someone else’s music). The first of the two Christmas songs, “O Come All Ye Faithful” suffers from the same problem that plagued “Amazing Grace” a couple of months before: Elvis’s voice is sometimes non-existent with so many background voices it the mix. “The First Noel” works better in Jarvis’ hands, however, although Elvis’s vocals aren’t as strong as in the former song. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content After fourteen songs in two days, things would slow down as Elvis quickly grew bored. With eleven Christmas songs in the can, attention was turned to the pop and Gospel albums they still had to finish. Kris Kristofferson had enjoyed a long career as a songwriter before trying his hand at recording. His debut album, the self-titled Kristofferson, came out in 1970 and although it was not a great seller, it did well on the country album charts. Many of the songs featured had already been covered by more famous artists, including “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” but Kris’ version still managed to reach number-one on the country charts and #8 on the pop charts. Elvis probably missed his window of opportunity to make the song a hit, but he liked the song and recorded it nonetheless, and did alright with it. It was never released as a single, however… Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content The pop song that was released as a single was “Until It’s Time for you to Go,” a song that was doomed to failure from the start. There was no energy in the recording; Elvis sounds half-asleep as he sings it, even when he performed it live on tour in 1972 he couldn’t breathe any life into it. Even Elvis recognized the song needed a little more pep, and tried it again in June with a faster tempo, but it was the May version that was released. And why it was released as a single is a great mystery. It had no chance of appealing to radio-listeners nor was it the best pop song recorded at the session; it peaked at #40 and sold less than 500,000 copies. “Fools Rush In” was more of the same. This time at least the song had some tempo, and it was a well-known song, but it was well-known because it dated back to World War II. The songs recorded in 1971 failed to catch on with record buyers or radio DJs the way the material from 1969 and 1970 had done and the primary difference between those songs and these songs was the feeling of freshness that the 69-70 material had that the 71 material lacked. His previous songs felt modern, cutting-edge, like a new sound from a new and improved Elvis. There were still old standards that Elvis loved to sing but they were buried onto the B-sides of albums and not given the publicity that songs like “Suspicious Minds” were afforded. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Too many of Elvis’s pop songs lately were just the old favorites he wanted to sing, and Felton Jarvis did not have either the means or the desire to insist on better, fresher material the way Chips Moman had done. Is “Fools Rush In” a bad song? No, nor is Elvis’s version a bad take on the song. But there’s no commercial value in it either. It’s just a filler with little done to it to help it rise above just being filler. A trio of Gospel songs was finished in one day, and two more came the day following as the style that would define the Gospel album began to take shape. The 1960 Gospel record was very much a product of the time; it was straight-laced and traditional. The 1967 follow-up took a few more liberties, but it too ended up being pretty conventional. This new Gospel album would go all-in on the “black, jubilee, pentecostal” flavor that Elvis grew up being around and admiring. That style is best exemplified by the songs “I’ve Got Confidence,” and “Seeing is Believing” which are more or less presented as “Rock and Roll spirituals.” Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content The album still featured several traditional “hymnal” songs but none of them measured up to what was recorded in 1960 or 1966. The title track “He Touched Me” was serviceable but not memorable. One song that Elvis really wanted to do something special with was “A Thing Called Love.” The song was written by Jerry Reed, who had previously provided Elvis a modest hit with “Guitar Man” and, after that, “US Male.” Reed had taken “A Thing Called Love” to top-twenty success and Elvis was keen to try it. Incidentally, Johnny Cash recorded his own version of the song around the same time Elvis did, but though Cash scored a number-one hit with it, Elvis’s version was never released as a single. His version featured Elvis in a duo with deep-voiced Armond Morales as well as a pretty fine arrangement by Felton Jarvis. The song may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a pretty nicely produced number that deserved better than to be buried in the middle of the He Touched Me album. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. 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