#but anyway that except with landslide. would be magnificent

[septembersghost]

what songs from present day would you want to hear elvis cover?

ANON!!! 🥰💕 i love this message an enormous amount, and then it tormented me for two days because i read it and instantly forgot every modern day song i've ever listened to somehow lol. the actual problem was, i felt like i didn't have a solid enough handle on today's genres that he might lean more towards or that would do him justice? i was sitting here frantically thinking of songs by pop girlies™ and i could hear him softly laughing over my shoulder. so i was going to give you a short answer.

then i ended up looking at my actual music library and came out with a novel.

first, i sent this to both my loves @joons and @headfullofpresley in my initial dilemma, looking for suggestions. sidenote: if anyone would like to add to this, you're welcome to!

chelsea gave me three that i think are simply marvelous and i will weep forever that we cannot have them: million reasons by lady gaga (the taste this has, the vision this has. I bow down to pray, I try to make the worst seem better, Lord, show me the way to cut through all this worn out leather. I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away, but baby, I just need one good one to stay. hello?!), praying by kesha (well, you almost had me fooled, told me that I was nothing without you, but after everything you've done, I can thank you for how strong I have become, 'cause you brought the flames and you put me through hell, I had to learn how to fight for myself, and we both know all the truth I could tell, I'll just say this is "I wish you farewell." I hope you're somewhere prayin'...I don't need you, I found a strength I've never known, I'll bring thunder, I'll bring rain, oh, when I'm finished, they won't even know your name...can you imagine how much i would cry?), and love on the brain by rihanna (baby, I'm fist fighting with fire just to get close to you, can we burn something, babe? and I run for miles just to get a taste. i NEED to hear how he would arrange this).

tam i know would say peace (there's robbers to the east, clowns to the west, I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best, but the rain is always gonna come, if you're standin' with me) by taylor. also slow dancing in a burning room (this is the deep and dying breath of this love that we've been working on. can't seem to hold you like I want to, so I can feel you in my arms, nobody's gonna come and save you, we pulled too many false alarms) and shadow days (did you know that you could be wrong, and swear you're right? some people been known to do it all their lives. but you find yourself alone, just like you found yourself before, like I found myself in pieces on the hotel floor. hard times help me see, I'm a good man with a good heart, had a tough time, got a rough start, but I finally learned to let it go...).

for my part, i feel like there is this endless list of songs i could mention from further back in time, but i wanted to pull from our modern era since you said present day, and i've been mulling some of my favorites in my mind. granted, elvis would play around with how these are crafted and produced, but in my head, i can hear these.

taylor is such an obvious go-to, and i wracked my brain trying to think of what would be right for him. something with her country flavor, or something with a bigger sound, a more rock-infused sound, like state of grace (PLEASE), like the story of us. but these jumped out - the original version of that's when. i love the duet with keith urban, but the original can be carried by one person. i can't explain, but it's very kentucky rain-coded to me. also just the story there, that idea that all these mistakes have been made, but the person you love is always welcome to come back. there's also an unreleased song of hers called just south of knowing why (drive all night) that is SO GOOD, and i hope it'll be on debut tv. for some reason i can connect it with him easily. "if I could drive all night, would I find my peace of mind? would it be a million miles of cold white lies and unfamiliar exit signs? I just drive on by, just south of knowing why. I don't have a plan, I don't have a map, I don't even know if I'm ever going back." lastly, and this is the biggest one, i toyed with a bunch of folklore choices (this is me trying...they told me all of my cages were mental...), but my brain just kept circling back to fearless, specifically to change. this is curious because i never used to like change, it's the re-recording that, well, changed it for me. the initial letdown of it (the final blow hits you, somebody else gets what you wanted again, and you know it's all the same, another time and place, repeating history and you're getting sick of it), and then the hopeful triumph overcoming it (but I believe in everything you do). the spirit of it - and we'll sing hallelujah! anyway i cried thinking about this so that tells you everything.

to the lady gaga connection, can i say that el would sound phenomenal singing any number of the songs from she and bradley's version of a star is born? always remember us this way. alibi. music to my eyes (i know it's a duet!). and especially maybe it's time.

harry's version of just a little bit of your heart where he made it rockier (I know I'm not your only, but at least I'm one, I heard a little love is better than none). canyon moon, you just have to trust me.

and it hit me, LITERALLY ANYTHING by lord huron?! there's an entire playlist of elvis-as-lord-huron songs that i could make, but if i can only choose one, i'm going to say the man who lives forever. (ends of the earth? time to run? love like ghosts? the night we met? louisa? wait by the river? love me like you used to?) also he'd make fool for love really fun.

miscellaneous choices i adore from my library that i know he'd transform amazingly: green eyes and a heart of gold by the lone bellow, in the light by the lumineers, let's be still by the head and the heart, morning comes by delta rae, ghost towns by radical face, the weight of love by snow patrol, all of me by john legend, river by josh groban, you and me by niall horan (time's never been on our side, so would you wait for me?). wait for it (death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep living anyway, we rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes, and if there's a reason I'm still alive...). breathe by la'porsha renae (I swear I pray every day, but still nothing's changing, feels like my life might need rearranging. you say that you're here and right now is a test of faith. so open up my heart and have your way, I'm sinkin' in my thoughts, so pull me from the waves, my head's above the water, you're my sweet escape. I need you just so I can breathe).

songs that are absolutely bonkers to choose, but i know how they could be re-worked somehow, i can HEAR it i just can't psychically share it with you: miley's never be me, aly & aj's symptom of your touch, hallelujah by alicia keys, someone new by hozier, graveyard (acoustic) by halsey (they say I may be making a mistake, I would've followed all the way, no matter how far. I know when you go down all your darkest roads, I would've followed all the way to the graveyard), golden by fall out boy (and I saw God cry in the reflection of my enemies, and all the lovers with no time for me...i like to cry idk), and simply because it tickles me as she is a huge fan, lana's get free. there are couple of lyrics in it that i question how he'd feel about, but this is modern elvis, i can open him up a little. here's why i couldn't help but choose this, in the end: there's no more chasing rainbows and hoping for an end to them, their arches are illusions, solid at first glance, but then you try to touch them, there's nothing to hold on to, the colors used to lure you in and put you in a trance. sometimes it feels like I've got a war in my mind, I wanna get off, but I keep riding the ride, I never really noticed that I had to decide to play someone's game, or live my own life. and now I do, I wanna move, out of the black, into the blue.

i could honestly go on forever, but have one last song, and it's an oldie (probably a cliche, but i do not care!), and that is landslide by fleetwood mac. considering how i feel about e's cover of bridge over troubled water, i think if i could hear him sing landslide i might be fixed forever (or shattered, but still healed somehow). picture this with me: I took my love, I took it down, climbed a mountain and I turned around, and I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills 'til the landslide brought me down. oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? can the child within my heart rise above? can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? can I handle the seasons of my life? well, I've been 'fraid of changin' 'cause I've built my life around you, but time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I'm gettin' older, too. it would be beyond beautiful.

honestly, for anyone reading, if you don't understand what i'm talking about in regards to the way he transformed and brought the incandescent soul out of songs, i just...please listen to this. my entire heart forever.