Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

I've always liked Rubberneckin and what can I say about Don't Cry Daddy? I'm a sucker for a tear jerker. I don't see the lyrics as hokey. It seems that both the dad and the child are hurting but both are trying to put on a happy face for the sake of the other. We get the sadness behind the facade from the dad's point of view but he knows that the same is going on with the child as well. Very few singers could pull this song off but of course Elvis excelled in making a song like this work.

 

My main issue isn't that they're hokey (though they are, imo). My issue is that no child's reaction to the death of a parent would be, "Hey, let's go replace her!" And if that WERE my child's reaction, I'd be very worried indeed. There's a difference between putting on a happy face and completely trivializing the death of a loved one.

Elvis had a remarkable ability to salvage poor/mediocre songs, but there's occasionally a lyric that even he can't redeem. Woman Without Love is another one that comes to mind. The lyrics are just so terrible, so wrong, that even the best performance wouldn't save them. Arguably, a fine performance just makes the terrible lyrics even worse, because it makes it seem like the singer actually believes what he's saying.

 

I like the melody and performance of Don't Cry Daddy, but the way the subject matter is presented is not realistic. No kid is going to be enthusiastic about getting a "brand new mommy". The song is schizophrenic. On one had little children are the first to feel the pain and feel the worst. On the other hand they want to cheer up daddy by helping him find a brand new mommy. It is just comically maudlin.

Now Rubberneckin' is killer!! It is also the best scene in the movie. Yeah man, groovy, I can dig it.

 

Ha ha, yes it sounds like a horror film. Hey day let's go find a replacement for mommy. Was it wrong that I put poison in her coffee?

 

I don't see that the boy wants to replace the deceased mom. The dad even lamented that "why are children always first to feel the pain and hurt the worst? It just don't seem right" I take it that little Tommy has caught his dad hiding away and crying and wanting in some way to make it better just like when a child brings a weed flower to mom if she is distraught because that's all they can give. He also wants dad to laugh again and do things with him. I told you I was a sucker for these kinds of songs.

 

Don't Cry Daddy, although it did not chart as high, sold as much as Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto during its chart run. Even Burning Love did not quite match the sales of these three singles.

 

We have no idea how long ago the mother was lost. The father may still be dwelling on the loss, and the children feel they have lost two parents. Kids rebound rather well

 

I love Don’t Cry Daddy. I actually think “together we’ll find a brand new mommy” is a plausible reaction for a small child concerned about his father, and, whether it’s because of his loss of Gladys or just because he’s a phenomenal interpretative singer, Elvis puts his heart and soul into what could be a maudlin lyric, doesn’t oversell it, and delivers a masterpiece.

 

I don’t know whether I’m using this term correctly, but I understand portamento to mean a singer’s ability to flow gracefully from one note to another to tie a melody line together, and the chorus of Don’t Cry Daddy is a masterclass in this, I think. Whatever you may think of the content of the lyric, it is beautifully sung, and, as I noted above, not oversung.

 

Oh yes, I agree, Elvis' singing and performance is outstanding here.

 

I see the whole issue the same way you both do on Elvis's splendid version of Mac Davis's Don't Cry Daddy and just like @Dave112, I am a sucker for these type of songs, especially when they are so well written and sung.

I understand how people can see it differently, but the whole "together we'll find a brand new mommy" line is not only realistic, but highly plausible as I pretty much experienced at close range this very issue with my first cousins when my aunt died suddenly while in her 30's, a story I mentioned previously when discussing the origins of Bobby Goldsborros's blockbuster hit, Honey. As much as they missed and loved their late mother, my young cousins were thrilled to death when my uncle found his soon to be new wife. To this very day, they are extremely close to their "stepmother," who ironically lost a daughter of her own at a young age. In fact, all my cousins felt like they had two moms that they loved very much to this day. As Mark so well said, kids often have an innate ability to rebound well, given the right circumstances.

 

I really dig Rubberneckin' as well and it really has held up well over the years (hence the re-dubbed hit version after Elvis died many years later). The whole production is fantastic, from that great guitar intro that Mark mentioned in his post, to the dynamic horns and backing vocals. A very strong double sided single in my opinion.

 

That's the way I've always interpreted it. Imagine a scenario where the mom died a year or two ago while giving birth to "Little Tommy" and maybe the unnamed older child was only two when it happened. So you'd have one kid who never met his mom and another who doesn't remember her, and a dad who cant get over the loss. This is supported by the fact that the pain and hurt the children are feeling centers around the dad and his inability to move on. To me it's entirely plausible a four year old might react like the child in the song in that scenario.

As to the song itself... well, at least it's better than Honey. Elvis was a sucker for this kind of maudlin sentimentality and I'm not. Musically it's a fine song though, and a fine performance. On the whole I like it much better than the slightly-overwrought Mama Like The Roses. It's about as good as a first-person death song can be, though that is a low bar. Obviously a wise decision to release it as a single, as this kind of thing was very popular at the time.

As I noted earlier, this marks the end of a remarkable year for Max Davis, when he wrote four of the six single a-sides that Elvis released in the calendar year, a record that no other songwriter came close to (I don't think anyone else has more than two). If Davis couldn't sing he might have continued writing for Elvis and I Believe In Music might have been an Elvis hit, but instead he went on to his own very successful solo career.

Rubberneckin' is better than a lot of what made it onto Back in Memphis and should have been on that album.

 

"Rubberneckin'" is a great romp, and I'm not surprised it was used in an Elvis film. It's the sort of material that Elvis's lighter movies should have been full of, instead of hack fluff recorded on soundstages.

As for "Don't Cry Daddy"...Elvis sings it beautifully, and the arrangement is sensitive and restrained. But the song itself is blubbering bathos, with the lyrics that dare the listener not to giggle. Oh, that voice inside the coffee cup! And the hilariously facile rhyming in "Don't cry Tommy, together we'll find you a brand new mommy"... (Incidentally, I always thought the song was about a divorce rather than a death in the family.)

Elvis himself knew the song was a bit much, and he completely took the piss out of it in an uproarious 1970 rehearsal:



Once heard, never forgotten!

 

I have often speculated about that prospect as well. I can just imagine Elvis doing great versions of Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me or One Hell Of A Woman, which ironically Mac wrote with Suspicious Minds songwriter Mark James. Does anybody know the backstory to that songwriting session? It makes me wonder if Mac and Mark were writing that song with Elvis in mind, and perhaps the publishing interests reared its ugly head once again. Of course Mac Davis's singing career was in full speed by this time, by I still wonder how he hooked up with Mark James for this song.

 

In hindsight, even with all that went right in Elvis’s career in 1968 and 1969, Rubberneckin’, A Little Less Conversation, and Clean Up Your Own Backyard were squandered or thrown away during this period. Rubberneckin’ and A Little Less Conversation became posthumous hits: they could have been contemporary hits.

 

No, I completely agree with you on the production aspect. It’s wonderful piece of work, and looking at Elvis’ soulful take on it, lyrics sure meant a lot to him. But for me: No. The only itch I get when I’m listening to Don’t Cry Daddy is on my feet and it’s to get away from it as soon possible. Similar thing goes for Seperate Ways. Elvis loved as it was an echo of what he’d been going through with the
missus but I don’t particularly enjoy that song either. I wouldn’t want to end it something cheesy like “Weeellll... different tastes!” but I guess it’s the most convenient

As for Rubberneckin’, it has been a staple song of my uptempo playlists since I was 13 or so. Remix version surely helped the song get more recognition (when compared to its initial release).

 

I wouldn't say Backyard was squandered... It was a single a-side following up the comeback hit In The Ghetto. Why it didn't do better I don't know, but it certainly was given a prominent opportunity.

 

My only explanation is that, by 1969, the Elvis soundtrack brand had been so damaged, that, even though the quality of the late movie songs had gone way up, DJs and fans didn’t take them seriously. If Clean Up Your Own Backyard had ended up on From Elvis In Memphis like its movie song counterpart Power Of My Love, it would be better known today.

 

I used to love that last single from the 60s. The cover was awesome with a fantastic tv special pic. The A-side was nicely sung but the surprise was on the other side with an energetic soul number full of rhythm & blues. To me, Rubberneckin' should hace been the lead track but, hey, DCD still did well with another top 10 hit.

 

Did the average listener or DJ really make a distinction between whether a song was from a soundtrack or not? I'm skeptical that would have made that much of a difference. Musically, it's got a sound similar to the American tracks and lyrically it is similar to In the Ghetto. I think it's more likely that Elvis was just releasing too many single too closely together and maybe this one got lost in the shuffle.

 

The Elvis song that I have to suspend critical thinking is Kentucky Rain. I love the song and Elvis does a brilliant job singing it but it makes me scratch my head. He almost seems like a stalker and I kinda hope everyone is giving him bum leads on finding her. She obviously wanted to leave without saying a word. If the guy was a loser, I think I know why she left. If the guy was a decent loving partner, she did him a favor and he dodged a bullet by having things end with her. That being said, I play along just because the song is wonderful to hear.

 

I'm in agreement with you on this, Elvis soundtrack brand had been so damaged. If anyone brought up here's a song from Elvis' latest movie, good luck with that!

What would've help break the soundtrack damage, if Elvis would've done promotional interviews. I don't recall hearing anything out of the Elvis camp with Elvis' time at American Sound, not even a photo, but when we started hearing Elvis returning to live performance in Vegas, it was a whole different ballgame...

 

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Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

April 1964 - Sept 1967
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

October 1967 - December 1969
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

The Seventies thread
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

 

I think "Stay Away Joe" tops them all. This movie drags along far too long and nearly has no story and consists more or less only of endless party scenes which aren't funny. Elvis is in great shape and mood and seemed to enjoy his fighting scenes with some of his Memphis Mafia guys but most of this movie to me is just a waste of time.