Johnny Rivers' "Last Train to Memphis"

Yester-day I listened to the second disc of a two-disc Johnny Rivers compilation album (Secret Agent Man: The Ultimate Johnny Rivers Anthology).  I noticed the lines "Guess I knew somewhere deep inside / That mystery train would take me for a ride someday" in "Last Train to Memphis," and I'm pretty sure this is a reference to Elvis Presley.  He lived in Memphis, and one of his songs is titled "Mystery Train" (although the phrase itself doesn't appear in the song and Rivers uses it in a different way).

Elvis Presley's "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"

I'm currently listening to an Elvis compilation album, and I noticed a couple things about "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You."  Some of the "heart"s in the recurring line "I want you, I need you, I, I love you / With all my heart" have either a melisma or a sort of stutter, which - to some degree - represents that "all."  The wanting, needing, and loving isn't limited to just one note or one pitch.

More significantly though, I noticed a large interval between the two syllables of "apart" in the line "'Cause I die every time we're apart."  I'm pretty sure the interval there is an octave (between C notes), which helps to demonstrate that distance.

The Kinks' "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy"

Yester-day I listened to Come Dancing with the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 and noticed the line "The King is dead; rock is done" in "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy."  I thought that this probably referred to Elvis (since he died in 1977, and the album is subtitled 1977-1986), but I wanted to do some research before writing about it.

According to the Wikipedia page, "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy" is from 1978.  An equally-dubious site is referenced claiming that the line is indeed about Elvis.  Normally, I wouldn't put that much faith in the accuracy of such sites, but it does confirm what I'd already been thinking.

Elvis Presley's "(There'll Be) Peace in the Valley (For Me)"

To-day I listened to an Elvis Christmas album, and I noticed a Biblical reference in the second verse of "(There'll Be) Peace in the Valley (For Me)":

Well, the bear will be gentle, and wolves will be tame
And the lion shall lie down by the lamb, oh, yes
And the beast from the wild shall be led by a child
And I'll be changed, changed from this creature that I am, oh, yes

There are more than a few similarities between this and part of Isaiah:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. - Isaiah 11:6-7

All of the same animals are mentioned, as is their being led by a child; it's just in a different order.

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen's "Good Rockin' Tonight"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen titled Too Much Fun: Best of Commander Cody.  I found "Good Rockin' Tonight" (written by Roy Brown) particularly interesting, although not for anything specific to their version (at least not at first).  Mostly, I was interested in the phrase "mighty, mighty man," which appears in the first verse.  "I wanna hold my baby as tight as I can / Tonight she’ll know I’m a mighty, mighty man"

"Mighty, Mighty Man" is the title of a song by Bobby Darin ("by" as in written by and performed by).  So I looked at the lyrics of his song, and I'm pretty sure he took some inspiration from "Good Rockin' Tonight."  It couldn't have been Commander Cody's version because Darin predates him by almost twenty years, but I do have versions of "Good Rockin' Tonight" by Elvis Presley (recorded 10 September 1954) and by Buddy Holly (recorded November/December 1956), both of which predate "Mighty, Mighty Man," which is from 1958.

All of the verses of Darin's song end with the line "Tonight I feel like a mighty, mighty man," which includes not only the phrase "mighty, mighty man," but also "tonight," just like "Tonight she'll know I'm a mighty, mighty man" in "Good Rockin' Tonight."  In the third verse of Darin's song, there's the line "Well, come a little closer, don’t you be afraid," which bears some resemblance to a line in the second verse of "Good Rockin' Tonight" - "Don’t you be afraid, I’d do you no harm."  Also in the third verse, there's the line "I’m gonna love you, little baby, all that I can" (at least, that's the best I could transcribe it as), which has the same sort of idea as "I wanna hold my baby as tight as I can" in "Good Rockin' Tonight."

In looking at the three versions of "Good Rockin' Tonight" I have, I also found some interesting variance in the possessive pronouns in the second verse.  All three direct the girl to "bring along... rocking shoes," but in Elvis' and Buddy Holly's versions, it's "my rocking shoes," where Commander Cody's version has it as "your rocking shoes."  The line after "bring along my rocking shoes" is some variation of "tonight I'm gonna rock away all... blues."  Elvis' and Commander Cody's versions have "all my blues," but Buddy Holly has "all your blues."

I've written about this type of thing before - where tiny words like pronouns and tense markers drastically affect what the speaker/singer is saying - and I never know whether it's an intentional change or not.  Regardless, that's illustrated again here.  In his version, Buddy Holly seems more interested in his girl's well-being than his own, wishing to rock away her blues rather than his own.

Jerry Lee Lewis' "Jailhouse Rock"

To-day I'm listening to a two-disc set of Jerry Lee Lewis.  It includes his version of Leiber and Stoller's "Jailhouse Rock," which I found something possibly interesting about.  Elvis Presley's version (the original) has the lines as:

Number 47 said to Number 3,
"Well you're the cutest jailbird I ever did see
I sure would be delighted with your company
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me."

But Jerry Lee Lewis' version has it as "I sure would be delighted if you'd come with me."  It's not that big of a difference, and it retains the same meaning, but I still think it's interesting to note.  Especially because most of the inadvertent lyric changes I've come across are in British bands' covers of Americans' songs.

Roy Orbison's "Trying to Get to You"

I listened to an-other Roy Orbison compilation album to-day (The Essential Sun Years), which includes "Trying to Get to You."  I wrote a post about this at the beginning of the year in which I remarked upon the similarities between this song and the Beatles' "In Spite of All the Danger."

Listening to it again, I became more convinced of these similarities.  I just looked it up, and the Wikipedia article on the song corroborates this, although it says the Beatles were inspired more by Elvis' version of "Trying to Get to You" than Roy Orbison's version.