#are you lonesome tonight?

[joanasolh]

[alienelvisobsession]

The Jack White Connection

In January 2015, Elvis’ very first recording, an unassuming simple acetate dating back to 1953, was sold at an auction to an undisclosed buyer for $300,000. It featured two sentimental ballads sung by Elvis, then a shy 18-year-old kid with a ducktail haircut: on the A-side was “My Happiness”, a tune from the 1940s that would be later made famous by Connie Francis, and on the flip side “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”, which Elvis would later re-record and release as a B-side to “All Shook Up”. Back in 1953, Elvis had paid $3.98 for this service offered by Sam Phillips at Memphis Recording Service, either to hear how he sounded on record, or as a present for his mum, as he would later claim in interviews. Some would go so far as to say that he hoped Sam would hear his voice and sign him up at Sun Studios. Whatever the reason, Elvis took the record to his high-school friend Ed Leek, who, in his recollection, had given him the money ($3.98 amount to about $45 adjusted for inflation) and owned a record player. Elvis played the songs there, and then for some reason left the record at his house. It’s funny how in later years some articles would claim that Gladys played the record over and over, while Elvis admitted in the Million Dollar Quartet recordings that he had lost it. In 1988 Ed Leek let RCA transfer the songs to digital to be released, but he kept the original acetate until his death in 2010.

In March 2015, a couple of months after the record was sold at an auction by Leek’s niece, it was disclosed that the buyer was a fellow rock ‘n roll musican, Jack White. The Detroit native planned to reissue the precious artifact on vinyl in a limited edition for Record Store Day. For this, he faithfully recreated the 10-inch, 78-rpm record in every detail, including the yellowish aging paper of the plain sleeve and the typewritten labels. Alan Stoker, the son of Gordon Stoker from the Jordanaires, the background singers in many of Elvis’ hits, did the transfer at the Country Music Hall of Fame. He ensured that the sound would be as clean as possible while maintaining the old haunting feeling of what many consider to be the Holy Grail of rock ‘n roll.

From this, you may have gathered that Jack White, who has won 13 Grammies in his career and is credited for writing the most distinctive guitar riff of the early 2000s with “Seven Nation Army”, is an Elvis fan. Not only did he embark in the project of bringing Elvis’ first record to the public with a precise replica, but he also played Elvis in a cameo for the comedy “Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story” (2007), which is a parody of music biopics. In the now iconic scene, Dewey, played by John C. Reilly, is terrified because he has to go on stage after Elvis, who’s hungry and wants to get out of there early. When Elvis approaches Dewey Cox, he speaks in an unintelligible Southern drawl, and anachronistically attempts a karate chop in the 1950s, before he even started to study it! This is a spoof of music biopics, after all, where these “artistic liberties” are plentiful (Baz Luhrmann’s movie has Elvis sing “Trouble” at Russwood Park, for instance). Then Jack White’s Elvis hilariously explains karate: “It’s called karate, man. Only two kinds of people know it, The Chinese and The King.” This unflattering and stereotyped portrayal of Elvis purposefully misses everything about Elvis’ personality, especially his humility and his Southern accent, focusing on some unimportant stereotypes instead: the sweating, the love of junk food, and the mumbling.

But, aside from playing him in a now famous gag, Jack White payed homage to Elvis as a musician as well. His 2014 Grammy-winning single “Lazaretto” features a cover of “Power of My Love” on the B side. The single holds the record of being the world’s fastest released record. It was recorded live in Nashville in front of an audience, pressed and released in under 4 hours. The B-side is according to The Tennessean “a thunderous version of Elvis Presley's ‘Power of My Love,’ — a faithful rendition, aside from cranking up the tempo and piling on the guitar overdrive.” In 2022, as we know, he had the honor of recording a duet of the same song alongside Elvis’ voice. The song is featured in the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s movie.

And finally, Jack speaks about his love for Elvis Presley in a 2018 episode of the podcast “Revisionist History” by Malcolm Gladwell. In an episode called “Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis”, the author tries to understand why Elvis never seemed to get a particular part of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” quite right. Jack, accompanied by his guitar, sings the song in full, including the slightly corny spoken bridge where the singer feels vulnerable, deceived and rejected, which is the emotional part that Elvis couldn’t face to sing. He says there are a lot of minor chords in the song that can get you in that melancholy vibe. The singer is lonesome and he doesn’t really care if his ex lover is lonesome: “it’s a McGuffin to pretend he’s worried about her”, Jack explains.

I’m sure there will be more occasions to hear Jack White paying homage to his idol in the future. After all, he has an Elvis shrine at home, as Gladwell reveals!

This is part of a series of posts about Elvis’ influence on the artists who followed him. You can read the other Elvis connections I wrote about here. So far I’ve written about people as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Quentin Tarantino and Andy Warhol.

[ghclassic]

One of my favorite memories of Terry and Robyn Bernard was her singing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. Jump to 13:08 here to see that:

[whileiamdying]

‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ Review: Hit and Run, Sleight of Hand

Wen Shipei’s first feature is a twisty and sophisticated debut whose best trick of misdirection is convincing us we’re watching a different kind of movie.

By Austin Considine March 16, 2023

If the movies have taught us anything, it’s that the cover-up is worse than the crime. For instance, if you accidentally hit someone with your van, don’t go back to scene, roll the body into a ditch, then drive away, as the protagonist of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” does. Things will not go the way you hoped.

We know this, but if the premise of “Lonesome” feels a little familiar, the director Wen Shipei still manages to keep us guessing. Part exploration of the ravages of guilt, part homage to the stylish Hong Kong gangster flicks of the 1990s, “Lonesome” (written by Wen with Noé Dodson, Wang Yinuo and Zhao Binghao) wears its influences on its sleeve but is a cool and sophisticated debut feature.

An opening image of a bull escaping captivity seems at first to indicate that we have entered a world of easy symbolism. There we meet a prisoner named Xueming (Eddie Peng), who narrates a story of when he, a former air-conditioning repairman, committed a hit-and-run in 1997. As fate appears to have it, his victim was married to a customer (Sylvia Chang), who becomes an unlikely friend. And now we seem also to have entered a world of easy coincidence, or at least classical tragedy.

Wen has great talent, however, for misdirection — not only with the plot, though he does that, too (not always as successfully; sometimes clever is just confusing). More important, he has fooled us about what kind of movie we’re watching. It is one in which the characters, even the bull, are subject not to the whims of gods and metaphors but to their own compulsions and machinations. Every action has its consequence, every phenomenon its cause.

Are You Lonesome Tonight? Not rated. In Chinese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.  Director: Shipei Wen Writers: Binghao Zhao, Yinuo Wang, Shipei Wen, Noé Dodson. Stars: Eddie Peng, Sylvia Chang, Yanhui Wang, Peiyao Jiang, Yu Zhang Running Time: 1h 35m Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery

[faggy-dog]

It's MAY! which means it's almost my birthday AND a new month of Deadlights is upon us!

This month is a lineup of Eastern noir. Movies from Korea, China, Turkey, Egypt, Japan -- some of the most beautiful work made across over seven decades. Check out Gretchen's patreon to join us for:

THE LONGEST SHADOW

[armoredbutterfly93]

Right in my fucking feels. This song, especially this version now, holds me when I wanna give up. And it hugs me when I feel unloved. It soothes my inner beast. I feel like this is the song I wanna die to.

Are You Lonesome Tonight? - Austin Butler

*This song is not on the Elvis (2022) soundtrack.

[myimaginaryradio]

Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis Presley

[depressedfairie]

in my elvis mood tonight yearning for him so bad <3

[diamantdog]

i got tagged by @burntblueberrywaffles & @badmoodbatflowers! their posts are here and here. thank you <333

rule: you must pick a song for each letter in your username

Doughnut - Twice I'll Come Too - James Blake Are You Lonesome Tonight - Austin Butler (from "Elvis" OST) Miss Freak - Xu Yiyang & Chuang 2020 Girlies Airplane - f(x) Nature Boy - David Bowie (from "Moulin Rouge" OST) This Love (Taylor's Version) - Taylor Swift Did You Know that There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd? - Lana del Rey Only Love - Ben Howard Grudge, the - Olivia Rodrigo

no-pressure tagging @shinakkyo, @onlyelaine, @persephoneed, @bahoreal (who understands my survival show obsession lol) & @stickmarionette <33333

[dearaustinbutler]

The Deluxe Edition is out and there are a few more songs from Austin

[withacapitalp]

YALL IM GONNA CRY I SWEAR TO GOD

[roadkill-dreaming]

♡

[tfc2211]

The String-A-Longs

[letmybonesturntodust]

FOLLOW ME WAY OUT THEREEEEEE

THERES A ROAD THAT WILL LEAD US BACK

WHEN YOU FOLLOW THE STRANGE TRAAILS

THAT WILL TAKE YOU WHO KNOWS WHERE???

[wakingfromthewater]

Mid-century espionage themed drag number where a drag king wears a bedazzled trench coat and tap dances to La Mer

[i-will-talk-fish]

Bryan Ferry _ Are You Lonesome Tonight?