Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

I Really Don't Want To Know *
There Goes My Everything **
(US) RCA 47-9960
Released: December 8, 1970
* Recorded: RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 7, 1970
** Recorded: RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 8, 1970



"I Really Don't Want to Know" is a popular song with music which was written by Don Robertson and lyrics by Howard Barnes. The song was published in 1953.

The best-known version of the song was recorded by Les Paul and Mary Ford in 1953, one of the top 100 songs of 1954, reaching the No. 11 in the charts.[1]

Eddy Arnold's version was a #1 Country song in 1954.[2]
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This was the lead single from the Elvis Country album, and we'll cover the songs as we go through that album.

 

I'M 10,000 YEARS OLD, ELVIS COUNTRY (LP)

(US) RCA LSP 4460
Released: January 7, 1971



Released January 2, 1971
Recorded June 4-8 and September 22, 1970
Genre Country, country rock, rock and roll
Length 38:49
Label RCA Records
Producer Felton Jarvis

Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) is the thirteenth studio album by American singer and musician Elvis Presley, released on RCA Records (LSP 4460) in January 1971. Recorded at RCA Studio B in Nashville, it reached number 12 on the Billboard 200.[5] It peaked at number six in the United Kingdom, selling over one million copies worldwide.[6] It was certified Gold on December 1, 1977 by the Recording Industry Association of America.[7]

The lead single of the album, "I Really Don't Want to Know" backed with "There Goes My Everything", was released on December 8, 1970 and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, number two on the Adult Contemporary chart, and number 23 on the country singles chart.[8]

The bulk of the album came from five days of recording sessions in June 1970 which yielded 35 usable tracks. Presley performed every track "live", recording his vocal part in the same take as the band, as was standard practice for him. Eight tracks from the session were released two months earlier in November 1970 on the That's the Way It Is album. During the sessions, Presley and producer Felton Jarvis realized they had several country songs in hand and decided to record several more to create a full album of country material. Needing two more satisfactory tracks, Elvis returned to the same studio in September where he recorded "Snowbird" and a manic, one-take version of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On."

Nearly every style of country music is represented; bluegrass, honky tonk, Western swing, rockabilly, countrypolitan, and even the then-nascent "outlaw" movement. Snippets of the song "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" act as a bridge between each track.

After this album, Presley would return to his usual practice of recording a seemingly random batch of songs on each trip to the recording studio, letting his producer assemble them into albums.

• Elvis Presley – vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar on "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" and "Little Cabin on the Hill"
• James Burton – lead guitar, dobro
• Chip Young – acoustic rhythm guitar
• Eddie Hinton – lead guitar on "Snowbird" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"
• David Briggs – piano, organ on "Little Cabin on the Hill" and "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water"
• Norbert Putnam – bass
• Jerry Carrigan – drums
• Charlie McCoy – harmonica, vibraphone on "I Really Don't Want to Know," possible organ
• Farrell Morris – percussion and timpani on "Snowbird," "Funny How Time Slips Away," "Make the World Go Away," I Really Don't Want To Know," "Faded Love," and "Tomorrow Never Comes"
• Harold Bradley – electric sitar on "Snowbird"
• Weldon Myrick – pedal steel guitar on "Little Cabin on the Hill"
• Bobby Thompson – banjo (on "Little Cabin on the Hill")
• Buddy Spicher – fiddle (on "Little Cabin on the Hill")
• The Imperials Quartet – backing vocals
• The Jordanaires – backing vocals (on "Funny How Time Slips Away" and "Make The World Go Away")
• Joe Babcock – backing vocals
• Millie Kirkham – backing vocals
• Mary Holladay – backing vocals
• Ginger Holladay – backing vocals
• June Page – backing vocals
• Sonja Montgomery – backing vocals
• Dolores Edgin – backing vocals
• Mary Greene – backing vocals
• Temple Riser – backing vocals
• Cam Mullins – string arrangements
• Don Tweedy – string arrangements
• Bergen White – horn arrangements

Side one
1. "Snowbird" Gene MacLellan September 22, 1970 2:17
2. "Tomorrow Never Comes" Johnny Bond, Ernest Tubb June 7, 1970 4:07
3. "Little Cabin on the Hill" Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt June 4, 1970 1:58
4. "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" Dave "Curlee" Williams, Sunny David September 22, 1970 3:10
5. "Funny How Time Slips Away" Willie Nelson June 7, 1970 4:32
6. "I Really Don't Want to Know" Howard Barnes, Don Robertson June 7, 1970 2:59
Side two
1. "There Goes My Everything" Dallas Frazier June 8, 1970 3:10
2. "It's Your Baby, You Rock It" Shirl Milete, Nora Fowler June 5, 1970 3:04
3. "The Fool" Naomi Ford, Lee Hazlewood June 4, 1970 2:34
4. "Faded Love" Bob Wills, Johnnie Lee Wills June 7, 1970 3:19
5. "I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water" Joe Babcock June 7, 1970 3:54
6. "Make the World Go Away" Hank Cochran June 7, 1970 3:46

2000 reissue bonus tracks
13. "It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing)" Shorty Hall, Alice Joy Merritt, Neal Merritt June 6, 1970 2:47
14. "A Hundred Years From Now" Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs June 4, 1970 1:40
15. "If I Were You" Gerald Nelson June 8, 1970 3:01
16. "Got My Mojo Working" / "Keep Your Hands Off of It" Preston Foster, Elvis Presley June 5, 1970 4:34
17. "Where Did They Go, Lord" Dallas Frazier, A.L. "Doodle" Owens September 22, 1970 2:27
18. "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" Traditional June 4, 1970 3:13

2012 legacy edition reissue
Disc one
1. "Snowbird" Gene MacLellan 2:17
2. "Tomorrow Never Comes" Johnny Bond and Ernest Tubb 4:07
3. "Little Cabin on the Hill" Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt 1:58
4. "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" Dave "Curly" Williams and Sunny David 3:10
5. "Funny How Time Slips Away" Willie Nelson 4:32
6. "I Really Don't Want to Know" Howard Barnes and Don Robertson 2:59
7. "There Goes My Everything" Dallas Frazier 3:10
8. "It's Your Baby You Rock It" Shirl Milete and Nora Fowler 3:04
9. "The Fool" Naomi Ford and Lee Hazlewood 2:34
10. "Faded Love" Bob Wills and Johnnie Lee Wills 3:19
11. "I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water" Joe Babcock 3:54
12. "Make the World Go Away" Hank Cochran 3:46
13. "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" Traditional 3:13
14. "A Hundred Years From Now" Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs 1:40
15. "Where Did They Go, Lord" Dallas Frazier and A.L. "Doodle" Owens 2:27
Disc two
1. "Love Letters" Edward Heyman, Kang Dadang 2:53
2. "When I'm Over You" Shirl Milete 2:28
3. "If I Were You" Gerald Nelson 3:01
4. "Got My Mojo Working" / "Keep Your Hands Off of It" Preston Foster, Elvis Presley 4:36
5. "Heart of Rome" Alan Blaikley, Ken Howard, Geoff Stephens 2:56
6. "Only Believe" Paul Rader 2:50
7. "This is Our Dance" Les Reed, Geoff Stephens 3:16
8. "Cindy, Cindy" Dolores Fuller, Buddy Kaye, Ben Weisman 2:32
9. "I'll Never Know" Fred Karger, Sid Wayne, Ben Weisman 2:25
10. "It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing)" Shorty Hall, Alice Joy Merritt, Neal Merritt 2:49
11. "Life" Shirl Milete 3:10
12. "The Sound of Your Cry" Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Buddy Kaye 3:17
13. "Sylvia" Geoff Stephens and Les Reed 3:17
14. "Rags to Riches" Richard Adler and Jerry Ross 1:54
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This is another great album from Elvis, and the quality of the songs, production and performance is very high. Elvis was still carrying along on the steam worked up from the 68 special and the return to live performing. There is nothing to dislike about the songs at all, although I personally am not a fan of the I Was Born 10,000 Years ago link song.
For me the link song spoils the flow of the album. The songs lose some much needed air. It is as though you don't get a chance to digest the track you have just heard and are hit with this rocking little piece of song out of nowhere, for no reason. I can only assume Elvis and/or Jarvis had been listening to som of the contemporary albums where they were producing a flowing album, using sound effects and instrumental links to tie songs together. In that form I think albums can work, and some of my favourite albums of all time use this form, but for me, the technique used as it is on this album actually ruins the flow of an album that would otherwise be in Elvis' top three or four albums.
Due to the strength of the songs and performances this album still holds up, but for me at least, it is somewhat damaged by this poorly thought out piece of production.

So,
What do you guys think of this album?
How does the structure work for you?
Tell us your heart on this album and we'll hit the first couple of songs tomorrow.

Cheers,
Mark

 

I like EC quite a bit, but I don't rate it nearly as highly as some fans do. There are a few songs that I don't like at all, and once again, the sequencing is a bit wonky, imo. On the plus side, the Snowbird/Tomorrow Never Comes sequence is possibly my favourite opening duo on an Elvis album, and I Really Don't Want To Know is one of Elvis' interpretive masterpieces.

 

With that link song, it is almost impossible for me to get a feel for the sequence to be honest.

 

I do not like the song I Was Born..either, nor do I like the linking concept. That being said it was probably the album (Elvis or otherwise) I played the most back in the day. I think it belongs in the top 5 best Elvis albums. And my top five Elvis albums would change rankings within the top five depending on mood. I would have to say I Really Don't Want To Know and Funny How Time Slips Away are my top two tracks on this album. The one I like the least (but is still pretty damned good) is There Goes My Everything (other than the mentioned I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago).

I was not aware of any contemporaneous reviews. But when I became aware of them much later, I was pleased that one of my favorite Elvis albums was so highly appreciated.

I believe these June and September 1970 sessions are the last for the Jordanaires with Elvis.

 

Let us all count our blessings that they used "I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago' as the linking material instead of something like 'Froggy Went A Courtin' '.

 

All kidding aside, while I personally wouldn't have sequenced 'I Was Born...' as linking material, I rate the album very highly. Side 2 ranks right up there in my list of favorite LP sides by Elvis.

Editing to add, instead of using 'I Was Born...' it might have been more interesting to include studio chatter between takes. Not saying I would have done this had I been in charge, but if they were looking for a concept, a rougher feel might have worked.

 

I think I prefer Froggy.

 

Those are probably my favorite tracks as well, along with Elvis's rocking and horn laden version of I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water. I still think I prefer Charlie Rich's cover version from 1965 during his Smash Records period, but I do dig that Elvis chose to go completely in another direction. Bergen White arranged those blaring horns once again, and they are just terrific sounding against Elvis's frantic singing.

My very favorite songs on the album are the two Skatter mentions above. Once again, Elvis seems to sink his teeth into an old Don Robertson song. No real surprise there as his songs seemed to resonate with Elvis lyrically and melodicallly as much as any songwriter that Elvis ever covered. Elvis's cover of Willie Nelson's Funny How Time Slips Away is almost equally fantastic. I would easily place this album in my top ten list of Elvis albums, but again, perhaps surprisingly to some fans and many critics, I would place Elvis Country right below Elvis That's The Way It Is and not above it.

 

What I dig about that version, besides the fact that Elvis was having a hoot with it, is the way that the band follows his lead. David Briggs actually throws in some seriously fine bluesy runs on the piano as Elvis and the band slow it down to a crawl. I never get tired of listening to these lighter moments as Elvis and those Nashville guys were bonding, musically speaking, throughout those fine sessions.

 

"Whole Lotta Shaking" is ferocious

 

I managed to get a rare (at the time because of dying format), Laserdisc. Sounds and looks great!

 

If Froggy Went A Courtin' was used they would have to name the album "Momma Laid 10,000 Eggs Ya Know"

 

I have the Lost Performances LD. Back in the day, I always used Don't Cry Daddy & In the Ghetto as demo material. Amazing sound.

 

I REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW
What an awesome performance! Yes, I REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW (penned by Don Robertson, one of Elvis' favorite songwriters) already was a C&W standard but Elvis gave his personal musical print with some Soulful vocals. And it works wonderfully well. Almost 15 years after his first record, Elvis was still blending both cultures (Black and White) effortlessly.

"Elvis Country" (1971)
Now we're talking about one of my favorite Elvis albums, probably the best from his last decade. First of all, I have no problem with I WAS BORN ABOUT 10.000 YEARS AGO (I even dare to say I prefer it as a snippets collection than in one single piece): it's a great link for such a common theme LP. But, hey, we're talking about the King and we all know that our man did not like to focus on a "strictly Country" project. So not only does he revisit all kinds of C&W genres (honky tonk, bluegrass, swing, etc), he also infuses his recordings some Rock (I WASHED MY HANDS IN MUDDY WATER, IT'S YOUR BABY YOU ROCK IT), Pop (SNOWBIRD), Rockabilly (THE FOOL), Rhythm & Blues (WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOIN' ON) plus his distinctive touch of Southern Gospel delicately spread all over the album (like those beautiful choirs from The Jords on MAKE THE WORLD GO AWAY.) It is wonderfully balanced. It is magestic.
Favorite track (probably): the hypnotic - almost Bluesy - FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY with Elvis using his high voice for a change.

Original Guralnick's press review (on "Rolling Stone", March 4th 1971)

"You wonder sometimes just who is controlling Elvis’ career. In the middle of a typical movie soundtrack album, Spinout, you come across not only a raunchy “Down in the Alley” but the interpretation by which Bob Dylan would most like to be known. “Tomorrow is a Long Time.” In a bland follow-up to his dynamic Memphis album, Back in Memphis, you find a brilliant and impassioned treatment of the Percy Mayfield blues, “Stranger in My Own Home Town.” And now at a time when it seemed as if his career must sink beneath the accumulated weight of saccharine ballads and those sad imitations of his own imitators. Elvis Presley has come out with a record which gives us some of the very finest and most affecting music since he first recorded for Sun almost 17 years ago.

Elvis Country is, obviously, a return to roots. If nothing else the album cover, with its picture of a quizzical Depression baby flanked by grim unsmiling parents, would tell you so. Its subtitle, too, “I’m 10,000 Years Old” — taken from a song which weaves mystifyingly all through the record, fading in and out after every cut — should give a clue to its intent. And the selection of material, its manner and presentation, from the Bill Monroe tune which echoes “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” the very first Sun release, to the Willie Nelson and Bob Wills blues, is a far cry from the slick country-politan which Elvis has been leaning on so heavily lately in his singles releases.

But it’s the singing, the passion and engagement most of all which mark this album as something truly exceptional, not just an exercise in nostalgia but an ongoing chapter in a history which Elvis’ music set in motion. All the familiar virtues are there. The intensity. The throbbing voice. The sense of dynamics. That peculiar combination of hypertension and soul. There is even, for those who care to recall, a frenzied recollection of what the rock era once was, as Elvis takes on Jerry Lee Lewis’ masterful “Whole Lotta Shakin'” and comes out relatively unscathed. He has never sung better.

But the core of the album, and perhaps the core of Elvis’ music itself, are the soulful gospel-flavored ballads, “Tomorrow Never Comes,” “Funny (How Time Slips Away),” and the Eddie Arnold-Solomon classic, “I Really Don’t Want to Know.” Well, it’s often seemed as if Elvis bore more than a passing resemblance to Solomon Burke. The way in which he uses his voice, his dramatic exploitation of vocal contrast, the alternate intensity and effortless nonchalance of his approach all put one in mind of a singer who passed this way before, only going the other way. And here he uses these qualities to create a music which, while undeniably country, puts him in touch more directly with the soul singer than with traditional country music. It was his dramatic extravagance in fact which set him apart from the beginning, and it is to this perhaps as much as anything else — to the very theatrics which Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis all brought to hillbilly music — that we can trace the emergence of rock & roll.

There’s not much to reproach about the album. Except for “Snowbird,” an unaccountable choice to open this album or any other, the choice of material is unexceptionable. It does continue, it’s true, a puzzling fascination with Eddie Arnold’s songs, but these, too, are invested with Elvis’ own particular brand of passion, and even “Make the World Go Away” becomes by transformation a kind of urgent plea. The production is fine and a big improvement on recent records. Instrumentation is perfect, from driving bass and rocking gospel-flavored piano to more traditional fiddle, harmonica, and dobro. On a good many of the songs there’s the tasteful suggestion of strings and horns and a chorus appears on about half, but we really haven’t heard so much of Elvis in a long, long time, and certainly the element of playfulness in his voice, the degree to which he is willing to take risks is something that has been absent since the very earliest days. There remains only the mystery of the album’s theme and the song which gives it its title. Even that is not so much of a drawback as a puzzlement, though, since the song — fragmented as it is- gives promise of being one of his more exciting revival-styled numbers. If only it were put together again.

Well, I don’t know what, really, this promises for the future. Elvis has never been exactly noted for his taste. Unlike Jerry Lee Lewis, say, who seems to possess a sure instinct for sticking to exactly what he is good at, Elvis has shown a distressing inability over the years to distinguish his strengths from his weaknesses. What is so encouraging about the album, of course, is its indication that he has not altogether laid waste to his talents, merely squandered them on efforts not worthy of his energy. The energy is still there, though, that much is certain. And if Elvis can only be persuaded to put out an album of blues now, too, we’ll have in capsule a picture of the genesis of rock & roll and what first went into the make-up of one of its few authentic geniuses, this brilliant and altogether original performer."​

 

That Rolling Stone review was instrumental in getting those outside Elvis' fan base to take him seriously. For a while, at least.

 

Those were nice. Make a good digital rip because Laserdisc have a tendency for disc rot. Whatever you do, don't share that file with your friends because that would just be wrong.

 

This is one of the first non- Camden Elvis albums that I ever had. I have made peace with the snippets of "10,000 Years" in between the other tracks but I've never embraced it. Other than the snippets, I have always loved this album. It's a tall order and bold statement but had Elvis stayed close to the material quality and vocal quality during these years throughout the 1970s, I think we would call the 1970s his decade and it would even cast a shadow on his legendary 1950s work. I have no idea, but have always suspected that the cover inspired another great album cover that came out later in the year by Dolly Parton.

 

Agreed. Elvis Country is certainly one of Elvis's very best albums--one of the few that was actually conceived as an album in the studio--but the use of a link song was a botch, since the song is too busy to work as interstitial material.

But on its own "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" is great--a werewolf transformation of folk into rock'n'roll and proof Elvis could still swing better than anyone else. I played this song during a family road trip many years ago and my Mom said "he must have been wiggling his hips during this one!" Like the similarly crazed assaults on "Whole Lotta Shakin'" and "Rags to Riches," "I Was Born" benefits from the strange, feral, hyperactive energy that distinguished the Nashville marathon, a sort of concentrated energy and aggression Elvis never regained.

As for the album's sequencing, Gurlanick does have a point about "Snowbird" being a weak opener. I don't mind the song, but it's not what I could choose for the starter. Here's the sequencing for my ideal version of Elvis Country--I've tried to alternate heavy ballads with mid-tempo or manic songs (with one exception). Other folks' desired sequencing might be very different.

01. "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" [full version of course!]
02. "Make the World Go Away"
03. "The Fool"
04. "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"
05. "It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing)"
06. "Little Cabin on the Hill"
07. "There Goes My Everything"
08. "I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water"
09. "Snowbird"
10. "A Hundred Years From Now"
11. "It's Your Baby You Rock It"
12. "Faded Love"
13. "Where Did They Go, Lord" [not sure if this really qualifies as country, but I need a heavy ballad here]
14. "Got My Mojo Working" / "Keep Your Hands Off of It" [not country at all, but what the hell]
15. "I Really Don't Want to Know"
16. "Cindy, Cindy"
17. "Tomorrow Never Comes"
18. "Funny How Time Slips Away"

 

Fair comment.
I always think of Anne Murray when I hear Snowbird by anyone also (not suggesting that's negative, by the way)

 

I disagree when it comes to Snowbird: I think it was the wrong song to open the album with, as it gives the impression that what follows is more "adult-contempo" than it really is. It's an Anne Murray song and gives the wrong first impression.

 

For me personally, the flow of Snowbird to Tomorrow Never Comes is fine, but I do not like Snowbird as an opener at all. It is just not a great song to my ears, and though Elvis sings it well enough, it is not a distinct enough performance to merit as an opener. It is also one of Elvis's less inspired country-pop moments from the album. I really like @Revelator's sequencing far better, and the opening choice of I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago makes far more sense to me thematically for this album.

 

Elvis Country is my favorite Elvis album.

The connecting thread of I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago I actually like, even if it wasn't necessary... I find it gives a sense of constant movement, and more conceptually it seems like whatever happens to the singer is just a moment in this metaphorical 10,000-year life. Lyrically, unusual perspectives on time abound on this album.

One track that feels a bit displaced (to me) is Whole Lot-ta Shakin' Goin' On, just somewhat ordinary and lacking a certain kind of style, perhaps. My favorites are Snowbird, Tomorrow Never Comes, Little Cabin On The Hill, Funny How Time Slips Away, I Really Don't Want To Know, and I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water... what a powerful LP.

 

Well since I bought this LP the week it came out (or close to it) I cannot imagine it not starting out with Snowbird. My mom loved that song, and especially by Elvis. It is far from the strongest track on the album. And it is the only one Elvis uses the original arrangement and style on the album. But for some reason it works for me. It is like dipping your toe in a cold swimming pool. It eases you into the shocker of a great album this is. It has the exact opposite effect as Wearin' That Loved On Look has.

Back in the day I knew a LOT of these songs as done by pop or rock artists. So, I was not so sure why it was considered "country". Of course now I know that Jerry Lee Lewis was not the original on Whole Lotta Shakin' or Johnny Rivers on Washed My Hand In Muddy Water and so on. Each of these songs were originally performed by country artists in the C&W style.

 

Appropriately enough, "Coat of Many Colors" was a song Elvis wanted to cover a few years later, but Dolly refused to give up some of her publishing so it didn't happen.