ELVIS on SUN, Feb. 1955: "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone." The origin of Creedence licks?

I found this at a library sale or flea mkt. or someplace out in the wilds. It's in a treasured place now.

 

Here come the copyright lawyers.

 

Oh yell heah.

 

Baby, Let's Play House - The Freshest, Newest Voice in Country Music!

Love it!

What a molten-hot meteor he was.

 

I could look it up easy enough, but for the fun of it, who wrote "I'm Left ..."? Sounds like a corny old Nashville factory number. Have always loved the title. I have the Elvis Sun Sessions album but I don't listen to it often. Have listened to Dave Edmunds do "Baby Let's Play House" many times. It's easy to tell how much he enjoys it. Anyone who likes this music and hasn't heard Edmunds' version should give it a listen. It's on the album Twangin'.

 

Interesting. Is this an album with just the original Elvis recordings or some instrumental re-recordings?

 

Instrumental re-recordings done circa 1964.

 

Cool. Thought so.^^

 

According to the Songfacts.com entry for the song:

“This was written by Bill Taylor and Stan Kesler, who were part of a group called the Snearly Ranch Boys, which recorded for Elvis' label, Sun Records. The melody for the song was lifted by a jingle for Campbell's soup. The head of Sun, Sam Phillips, arranged for Elvis to record the tune, and brought in a drummer named Jimmie Lott to play on it, augmenting Elvis' regulars: guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black.”

Cue the “The More You Know” music...

 

I have the Boppin' Bob mastered, "The Sun Collection" 1979 lp with the dry mixes, no added reverb, Superb.

When you're first, all follow you.

 

In his book "Mystery Train," Greil Marcus makes the observatio

Edmunds used period instruments for his version too. I remember reading in a Creem magazine interview circa 1981 him saying that when they recorded it, the bass player wasn't used to playing an upright so he had bloody fingers by the end of the session.

He also mentioned that it was an old recording. It had been recorded about ten years prior to Twangin'... I mention this in case anyone thought Nick Lowe was the bloody-fingered bass player in question -- he's not.

 

Absolutely...

The whole Green River LP was/is Elvis Sun sides without the innocence

 

Fogerty was also a big fan of another Elvis guitarist... James Burton. Although it was Burton's work with Ricky Nelson and Dale Hawkins that Fogerty was drawn to.

 

Uh...well...yeah, especially for me since I'm several months away from turning 60 this is the first I've heard of these two songs by Elvis and of Scotty Moore's playing.

Who wrote the original lyrics of "Baby Let's Play House"? Was he a latent wife beater? I mean singing about basically "If I can't have you girl, no body else will, so I'll just do you in" syndrome is not what I'ld think Elvis would want to sing about.

Is there anywhere in You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog Elvis sings he hopes the dog is rabid and gets put down? I don't think so.

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! Long Live (if you survive) Rock n Roll! Maybe those kind of threatening lyrics were the cause for the push back from the conservative religious folks back then. The music of the devil and all that crap! GEEZ! Maybe these guys had a valid point. We all know they could hear the lyrics back then, not like it is today even with rap.

 

It's Blues. Lots of Blues songs talk about real life, not just love love love. Songs like "Your Funeral, My Trial", "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby", "Commit a Crime".

The original version, just two years prior:

 

When someone sings it, they’re singing lines from a fictional character, like an actor who plays the role of a murderer. Geez, just because someone sings a song doesn’t make it autobiographical.

 

James Burton's solo on Nelson's "Fools Rush In" (at 1:10 in the below video) is possibly my favorite rock'n'roll guitar solo of all time. Brilliantly composed and articulated. Lifts the song to a whole new level. It's almost like a mini song-within-a-song.

I hear future echoes of this in Fogerty's playing, but Burton was definitely in a class of his own. This solo left such an impression on me that I actually remember where I was when I first heard it: Driving south on Route 1 in the spring of 1989 going to get burgers at Little Tavern* in my old Dodge Charger!

* This was a burger chain in the Maryland-DC area, not actually a tavern.

 

So true.

 

I get your point that these were songs written by the true life experiences of African Americans which makes sense FOR THEM as a catharsis. But still Elvis did have a wide selection of songs to choose to cover. All of this Blues music is new to me anyway. I wonder if Elvis was still alive today if he'ld had done a cover of gangster rap. Something tells me no.

 

Scotty Moore's style of playing reminds me of the minimalist rhythmic note noodling technique Steve Cropper demonstrated with Booker T. and the MG's. Wonder if Scotty influenced Steve.

I remember my dad doing a couple of these kind of simple sounding twangy riffs which sounded more like what I heard on "Hot Rod Lincoln".

 

I'm going to answer this myself because a little bird told me...REVERB IS THE CULPRIT! When it's dry one can hear the lyrics better.

 

I'd never heard that before. Nice song, but the solo is superb.

Play it, James.