In short
Freud’s concept of parapraxis (“faulty acts/functions”)—how slips, misremembered lyrics, and small errors can reveal unconscious feelings—used to analyze Elvis Presley’s performances, especially lyrical discrepancies in “Old Shep” and the spoken-bridge breakdown in “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” The episode also frames “mistakes” as meaningful rather than failure, illustrated by Gladwell’s own anxiety about losing control and by singer-songwriter Casey Bowles forgetting lyrics while singing about her mother.
Guest backgrounds
Michelle Press, psychoanalyst and president of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; Alan Elms (psychologist, Davis, CA) and Bruce Heller (coauthors of the Elvis essay); Jack White, musician/producer and Elvis fan (Third Man Records); Bobby Braddock, Nashville songwriter (“King of Tears”); Casey Bowles, church-raised singer-songwriter.
Key claims
Elvis’s word changes (“stroke” vs “struck”) invert moral redemption into remorse; his “Are You Lonesome Tonight” sung sections stay controlled, while the spoken bridge shows vulnerability and error; after Priscilla left in 1972, bridge renditions worsen, reflecting betrayal/abandonment themes.
Notable examples
“Old Shep” lyric discrepancy; 109 errors across 10 live performances of the spoken bridge; Priscilla’s account of Elvis’s “virgin” preference and cold/dark bedroom; Jack White’s analysis of the bridge as the singer’s confession; Casey Bowles forgetting a line in a song about her mother (“everything but alone”).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOA Random Journey to Elvis
1:55 to 3:43
Malcolm Gladwell shares an intriguing personal story about Elvis.
“To introduce this episode, I just want to relate how random my journey to it was.”
Exploring Parapraxis with Michelle Press
3:44 to 5:19
Discussion with Michelle Press about Freud's concept of parapraxis.
“Join me for a walk down revisionist history, Mamrie Lane.”
The Meaning of Freudian Slips
5:20 to 6:39
Understanding the significance of slips of the tongue according to Freud.
“What if a singer couldn't remember the words to a song, a song he'd sung a thousand times, particular parts of the song, the same part of the song over and over, what would that tell us about the singer?”
Elvis and the Song 'Old Shep'
6:40 to 11:28
Exploring Elvis's cover of 'Old Shep' and its implications.
“and that that sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious ideas that are trying to find expression but are, because they're unacceptable, they emerge in these ways when one might be unguarded.”
Elvis's Complex Relationships
11:28 to 14:01
Discussing Elvis's complex feelings towards relationships and loss.
“It's a song about love, betrayal, and loss, themes that are at the center of Elvis' life.”
Priscilla's Memories of Elvis
14:01 to 14:32
Explore Priscilla Presley's reflections on her relationship with Elvis.
“Six years you lived there before he decided to marry you.”
Understanding Parapraxis
14:33 to 14:59
Learn about Freud's theory of parapraxis and its relevance to Elvis.
“And what does Freud's theory of parapraxis say?”
Elvis's Recording Sessions
15:00 to 16:52
Insight into the recording of 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' and its context.
“For Elvis, the real parapraxis occurs in Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
The Cursed Song: 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?'
16:53 to 18:18
Examine the struggles Elvis faced with the song's performance.
“Is he, when he records that, are the Jordan Air singing along with him or are they laying that track down separately?”
Elvis's Slip and Creative Anxiety
18:19 to 19:25
Discuss the implications of Elvis's slip in performance as a metaphor for creative anxiety.
“And from then on, Elvis could never quite get it right.”
Show all 27 chapters
Jack White's Connection to Elvis
19:26 to 21:54
See Jack White's insights into Elvis and his unique connection to the music.
“I've been singing this song under my breath for months.”
Jack White's Connection to Elvis
23:35 to 24:06
See Jack White's insights into Elvis and his unique connection to the music.
“When the Internet arrived, most people used it to look things up.”
Jack White's Connection to Elvis
24:11 to 25:19
See Jack White's insights into Elvis and his unique connection to the music.
“Okay, let's talk about something everyone has an opinion on, healthcare.”
Jack White on Elvis's Influence
25:56 to 28:00
Delve into Jack White's experiences and admiration for Elvis.
“It's funny, I played a bunch of his stuff.”
Exploring Elvis' Emotional Complexity
28:00 to 29:47
Learn about the emotional layers in Elvis' 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' and its significance.
“After we talked, White took me into his vault to show it to me.”
The Dichotomy of Control and Vulnerability in Song
29:47 to 33:50
Discuss the contrasting emotions between the sung and spoken parts of the song.
“A man is wondering whether his lover misses him.”
Analysis of Elvis' Live Performances
33:50 to 37:55
Examine the challenges Elvis faced in performing 'The Spoken Bridge' live.
“I try to push it into a character standpoint rather than it being a self-confession for me.”
The Impact of Personal Betrayal on Performance
37:55 to 39:59
Understand how personal experiences influenced Elvis' renditions of his songs.
“Elms and Heller find that Elvis performs the sung portion of Are You Lonesome Tonight more or less flawlessly because the sung portion is the part of the song where the singer is in control.”
The Impact of Personal Betrayal on Performance
40:00 to 41:33
Understand how personal experiences influenced Elvis' renditions of his songs.
“Shall I come back Tell me dear Are you lonesome Oh Lord, Lord I wonder how...”
The Impact of Personal Betrayal on Performance
41:41 to 42:46
Understand how personal experiences influenced Elvis' renditions of his songs.
“Everyone can agree that something this important should work better than it does.”
Meeting Bobby Braddock and Casey Bowles
43:21 to 44:42
Malcolm Gladwell introduces Bobby Braddock and Casey Bowles, discussing their backgrounds and music.
“After I left Jack White, I went to see Bobby Braddock, just down the street at the Sony Studios on Nashville's Music Row.”
Recitations in Country Music
44:42 to 46:14
Bobby Braddock discusses the concept of recitations in country music, referencing Elvis.
“Yeah, he really, he was a Church of Christ song leader and really wanted to be a Jordan Ayer, badly.”
Emotional Songwriting
46:14 to 48:51
Casey Bowles shares a poignant song she wrote about her mother, exploring family connections.
“Braddock hasn't written one since something he did for Toby Keith in the 1990s.”
The Nature of Parapraxis
48:51 to 55:19
Exploring the significance of mistakes in performance, with insights from Elvis and Casey's experience.
“And there is a line that says, you know, she's always been somebody something.”
Reflections on Memory and Music
55:19 to 57:08
Casey Bowles reflects on the relationship between memory and music, highlighting the emotional weight.
“Fumbling to remember the lyrics of a song about her mother Fumbling not because her mother didn't matter to her, but because she did.”
Elvis's Lonesome Tonight Performance
58:19 to 58:59
A rendition of Elvis's song 'Lonesome Tonight' and reflections on its themes.
“So it would be a wonder if you're lonesome tonight.”
Elvis's Lonesome Tonight Performance
1:00:18 to 1:01:18
A rendition of Elvis's song 'Lonesome Tonight' and reflections on its themes.
“We all know it should work better than it does.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This is Jacob Goldstein from Business History. When the internet arrived, most people used it to look things up. Others saw what it could really do. The same is true with ChatGPT. ChatGPT work goes beyond answering questions. Give it a goal, plus things like notes, files, feedback, data, or project plans, and it can help create a brief, analysis, deck outline, tracker, or workflow. You stay in control, reviewing the work and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.
0:39Let's talk about something everyone has an opinion on, healthcare. We all know it should work better than it does. Optum believes that too, and they're trying to improve it. They're helping healthcare teams and pharmacy services work together, like bringing primary care and prescription drugs straight to your home so you can stay on top of your health. Optum's also building technology that connects the whole healthcare system so it can better take care of the whole person, you. Optum is making healthcare work as one for everyone. See what Optum's up to at Optum.com. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem?
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1:54Bushkin.
1:59To introduce this episode, I just want to relate how random my journey to it was. I was reading a book, I can't even remember what it was, and in a footnote, I always read the footnotes, the author said the psychologist whose work she was referring to had done a very strange paper once about Elvis. At which point, I stopped reading the book and looked up the very strange paper about Elvis. It was by Alan Elms. It was amazing. So immediately I go to the next question. Was Alan Elms still alive? Yes, living in Davis, California. Next step, I got to go see him. So I immediately fly to San Francisco, rent a car.
2:38But the rental agency is out of all cars except for a bright canary yellow Chevy Corvette, which I take happily. But then halfway to Davis, driving at speeds that are very, very far from legal, I start thinking, what's this guy going to think of me if I show up in a bright canary yellow Corvette? He's a brilliant psychologist. I don't want him prejudging me. So I park it around the corner, walk to his house, and spend a lovely afternoon with him. Sadly, he was feeling poorly at the time and didn't speak well enough for me to use a tape of his interview. But my spontaneous journey set the correct tone, I think, for this whole episode, which is that it was intended to be a caper, a grand caper, in which many crazy, unexpected things happen.
3:25And as you will discover, so it was. By the way, the thing that Alan Elms and I talked the most about was not actually his Elvis paper. It was another even more genius thing he once wrote about the Wizard of Oz, which I promise you that I will get to one day here at Revisionist history. Join me for a walk down revisionist history, Mamrie Lane.
3:51The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is in a very formal European-style building on a quiet side street on the upper east side of Manhattan. Oak tables, high ceilings, in the library long ribbons of leather-bound volumes, and five different busts of Sigmund Freud all in a row. I went there to meet with the society's president, Michelle Press, a psychoanalyst herself, with that lovely quality of patience and openness the best therapists always have. I wanted to talk with her about a subject that I've always found deeply interesting, what Freud called parapraxis. But not just anyone's parapraxis, the king's parapraxis.
4:44My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. After the first two episodes on memory earlier this season, I decided to do a third. It involves an odyssey.
5:06This odyssey took me from the pages of the Handbook of Psychobiography to a shrine in Tennessee, to the legendary Battery Studios in Times Square, and to the hushed offices of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, where I sat with Michelle Press in search of an answer to a simple question. What if a singer couldn't remember the words to a song, a song he'd sung a thousand times, particular parts of the song, the same part of the song over and over, what would that tell us about the singer?
5:46It was a term in German, faulty acts or faulty functions. It would be slips of the tongue. It could be misreadings, mishearings, but it's Freud's invention. Michelle Press is talking about parapraxis. From the Greek, para meaning abnormal, beyond. Praxis meaning act. Abnormal speech acts. Or, as they are more colloquially known, Freudian slips. Does Freud mean that there are no accidental slips? Or that if you look at the range of accidental slips, you can find meaning in some? So when you read him, he doesn't want to sound that kind of definitive. He'll say, yes, maybe one might prove that there are some that are truly accidental or truly a result of fatigue or of maybe some medical illness.
6:39But he said, if you do the work, one will find the reasons for the slip, that they're not accidental, that they have, he called it a sense. and that that sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious ideas that are trying to find expression but are, because they're unacceptable, they emerge in these ways when one might be unguarded. Now is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion of parapraxis? Yes. When I was a lad an old ship was a pub over hills and meadows with strain In 1956, early in his career, Elvis Presley recorded a song called Old Shep. It's a sentimental song about a boy and his dog, Shep, written in the 1930s by Red Foley.
7:42The dog gets old and sick. The vet says there's no hope. The boy aims his rifle at Shep to put him out of his misery, but he can't pull the trigger. He lies down next to Shep, cradles him in his arms as the dog dies. And the song ends. Old Shelby has gone Where the good doggies go And no more with old Shelby Will I roam But if dogs have a heaven There's one thing I know Old Shep has a wonderful home
8:37Old Shep is not one of Elvis' more famous songs, but in an essay published in 2005 on Elvis, the psychologists Alan Elms and Bruce Heller have an aside about a small but significant discrepancy between the original version of Old Shep and Elvis' cover. I'm going to come back to Heller and Elms in a while, because they really do the most thorough analysis of Elvis' lyrical parapraxis. But let's start with Old Shep. Listen to Hank Snow performing the lyrics as they were originally written. The boy has just put away his gun, realizing he can't shoot Shep. So I threw down that old gun, ran right up to his side.
9:25He laid his faithful old head right on my knee And friends, I stroked the best pound That a man ever found I even cried so I scarcely could see Now listen to Elvis sing his version. I had struck the best friend that a man ever had. I cried so it scarcely could see. Hank Snow sings, I stroked the best pal a man ever found. Meaning that the boy considers an act of violence against his best pal, then decides against it and takes instead the path of nurture and sympathy. He recovers his humanity. But Elvis sings, I had struck the best friend a man ever had, which turns the meaning of the song completely upside down.
10:35The boy does not recover his humanity. He now holds himself responsible for an act of violence against Shep, an act of violence that, in fact, he did not commit. Stroke becomes struck, And all of a sudden, a song about moral redemption turns into a song about morbid remorse. Now, I suppose you can say stroke, struck, whatever. Those two words sound the same. It's just a cover. But it's not just a cover. Elvis was obsessed with Old Shep. It's the first song he ever learned on the guitar. He played it incessantly as a child. At age 10, he played it at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair, his first public performance.
11:16He played it at his high school talent show and won. He played it on dates with girls. He played it well into his career. And why does the song resonate so much with him? It's a song about love, betrayal, and loss, themes that are at the center of Elvis' life. He's a twinless twin, someone whose twin died in utero, and he's obsessed by that fact. He brings it up again and again, the loss of someone who should have been his closest friend. Albus's mother, Gladys, is to say the least unusual. She's controlling, intense. He calls her baby. Gladys died when Albus was just 23. When he first saw her casket, he threw himself on top of her body.
12:04Then stepped back and talked about how beautiful she was while pointing to her dead feet. He called them her little suities. He did this again and again. At the end of the funeral service, he lay on top of her casket saying, I want to go with you. I don't want to stay here. I can't be without you. And we haven't even gotten to Priscilla, Elvis's wife. He spotted her when she was 14 and eventually convinced her to move in with him in Memphis. Once, Elvis took you to a morgue. Yes, he did. This is Priscilla being interviewed by Barbara Walters in 1985. Why? Why that fascination? I don't know. I don't know what the fascination was.
12:51This is not the first time that he had done this. I don't know if it was for the shock value, you know, to see how people would react, or just for his own thrill of it. You wrote, there were times when you and Elvis spent days in the bedroom, freezing bedroom, he liked it very cold. the windows with blackout drapes so no sunlight entered day after day it went into weeks yes we stayed like that we had our food delivered by the door and
13:26it was cold I mean he did like it cold and it was dark and it could get real lonely And that's how he liked it at times. Like a cocoon. Almost like a womb, I guess. You think? Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on a white couch, surrounded by pink flowers. Priscilla is in a strapless sundress. She looks amazing. Barbara Walters turns to her and says, Elvis controlled your looks, your clothes, your hair, your makeup. He controlled you totally. Priscilla says, yes, he did. Then. Six years you lived there before he decided to marry you. In those six years of sleeping with him every night, he never had intercourse with you.
14:15You wrote in your book that there were times when you begged him. Six years of that? Priscilla, why? Well, again, you know, I can only go back to what his concept was as what he wanted in a woman. And somewhere along in his past, he said that he wanted a virgin. Elvis is complicated. And what does Freud's theory of parapraxis say? That complicated feelings, inappropriate, maybe unacceptable feelings, are normally suppressed. But every now and again, some little bit of that buried emotion slips out. And if you're paying attention and listening closely, that little slip can tell you something. Struck for stroke.
15:08But Old Shep is just the beginning. For Elvis, the real parapraxis occurs in Are You Lonesome Tonight? a song originally written in the 1920s and which Elvis took to the top of the charts just after he came out of the army.
15:33Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss? Hamilton, WB, 0106, take two.
15:52Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music Row in Nashville April 4th, 1960 The recordings from the original session now held in the Sony Music Archive Yeah, this is, there's numerous takes here so they fall apart, they make a mistake and what have you John Jackson and Vic Anasini from Sony, me all listening together at the legendary Battery Studios in Manhattan where everyone from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen recorded Holy Ground. I started my quest at the very beginning. Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome? Tonight
16:52This voice is so amazing. Yeah. Is he, when he records that, are the Jordan Air singing along with him or are they laying that track down separately? No, live. Everything's live. Yeah, everything's live. Yeah. He always preferred to have everyone in one room and record live. Oh, even in one room, not in booths? No, no, no, no. He hated booths. Recording the song was not Elvis' idea. It was a favorite of the wife of his manager, Tom Parker. In the studio, Elvis asked that the lights be turned off, so the room was in darkness. He did five takes. He didn't like any of them. It was four in the morning when he recorded it.
17:30So he made everyone get out of the studio, go away, and then he just did it. And then this was the second take, which they told him of the background singers, you know p-popped because he said just stop the tape you know i'm done they said just do it once more because you know we had a p-pop on there so the third take ends up being the master oh i see the label held it back for seven eight months well they didn't realize what they had on their hands yeah it was seven months i think after he uh yeah they finally released it as a single and uh didn't go out he had done eight songs for elvis's back and uh this was just like yeah Just try this one.
18:08Recorded in the wee hours of the morning, in darkness, as a favor to someone else, a song neither Elvis nor his label particularly liked. It's almost like the song had a curse on it right from the beginning. And from then on, Elvis could never quite get it right. I talked about this with Michelle Prest at the New York Psychoanalytic Society. Elvis wasn't typically someone who forgot the words to the songs he sang. It's all these examples, sort of his life, of him being able to recite, to sing from memory, massive amounts of stuff. I'm worried, I'm interested about that. There was a little slip.
18:48I'm worried about that. I said, I'm worried about that. I'm interested in that. And I'm wondering, what would you make of that as a psychoanalyst? I try to go on, but of course, I'm talking to a hardcore Freudian. I meant to say I was interested, but what came out was worried. I mean, I'm still caught on your slip, obviously, thinking... What do you make of it? So one thought was whether the slip might be a key to something that you're figuring out and puzzling with him. Because right now, you're immersed in him. Oh, I am. I've been singing this song under my breath for months. I can't understand why.
19:36I've never been an Elvis fan. I don't own a single song of his. Or am I drawn to this story because isn't this story that I'm talking to you the great anxiety of anyone in a creative field? That moment when you lose control, right? where the presentation to the audience is unmasked. I want to show you... I take out my laptop, pull up YouTube. There's a mountain of Elvis on YouTube. One of the last performances of his life. It's bananas. I mean, he's singing a song he's singing thousands of times and he just completely loses control of it. I can skip it. Here it comes.
20:32I wonder if you lost in the night. You know, someone said the world's a stage in each of us play a part. Playhead, playing in the plus tags. You read your lines so clearly.
20:58When I first saw it, it, as someone in a, I mean, I'm not Elvis, but I'm someone in a creative field. It terrified me. It's like up on stage doing what he's paid to do. And he, he just.
21:19I'm going to go on living without you. And the stage is bare, and I'm standing there without any hair. I don't know.
21:31If you're going to come back to me, I'm going to hang with you. Every live performance he's ever given of this that we have on tape, he mangles the bridge. He can't do it right. He's returning to the song again and again and again and again and again and doing the same kind of... In this particular... It's always a bridge. It's kind of like a rap, right? He's almost... Over how many years did this go on? Years. Okay, in 1982, this laughing version was a radio hit in the UK and reached number 25 on the British singles chart. At Battery Studios, I made the Sony guys play every version they had. They even have names.
22:13Laughing Elvis, Crazy Elvis, each one stranger than the one before. The world's a stadium, and each must play a part.
22:39There's sweat and tears streaming down his face.
22:49And I had no cause to die.
22:56It goes on like this, on and on. Sing it, baby.
23:04Shall I come again? Tell me, dear, are you lost something to me?
23:23That's it, man. 14 years, I've done the drain, boy, I'll tell you.
23:34This is Jacob Goldstein from Business History. When the Internet arrived, most people used it to look things up. Others saw what it could really do. The same is true with ChatGPT. ChatGPT work goes beyond answering questions. Give it a goal, plus things like notes, files, feedback, data, or project plans, and it can help create a brief, analysis, deck outline, tracker, or workflow. You stay in control, reviewing the work and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans.
Read the full transcript
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25:43American Military University. Made for what's next. Learn more at amu.apus.edu. Have you ever played this song before? No, I never played it before. It's funny, I played a bunch of his stuff. Would you mind flipping the standby switch on the back? I'm with Jack White at his studio in Nashville, Third Man Records. Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, one of the great rock and rollers of his generation, and a huge Elvis fan. He has a shrine to Elvis in his hallway, actual shrine. All that's missing is flowers. We met in his private office, lots of black and yellow and leather and taxidermy.
26:28He sat on the couch with a guitar. Do you play Elvis songs in concert? Sometimes I do.
27:03I was going to say, don't stop. I'm enjoying it. Any other ones you do? By the way, why that one? What's it about that song? I had heard that early from a band called the Flat Duo Jets that I really liked, and I didn't know it was Elvis. And then when I heard the Elvis version, I had connected the two, like, oh, now I'm going to do it. And I started doing it when I played in Coffee Houses. I started playing that. I was like 16, yeah, so that goes back. Which is funny, I'd eventually heard a story of Robert Plant telling Elvis he loved that song when Led Zeppelin met Elvis and then when they walked out of the hallway that Elvis poked his head out in the hallway and sang that song to Robert Plant.
27:49They sang it back to each other and were crying. Must have been an amazing moment. Jack White owns the original acetate pressing of Elvis' first recording from 1953, My Happiness. After we talked, White took me into his vault to show it to me. It's priceless. He asked me if I wanted to hold it. I was too terrified to say yes. Jack White seemed like the right person to see to try and understand Elvis' problem in Are You Lonesome Tonight. All right, let me see if I can take a crack. I might have to give a couple of whirls, but...
28:32Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memory stray To a bright summer day When I kissed you And called you sweetheart Do the chairs in your parlor Seem empty and bare Do you gaze at the doorstep and picture me there? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight?
29:46That's the first half of the song. The sung version, all questions. A man is wondering whether his lover misses him. Then comes the spoken bridge, in which the emotional tables are turned and the man leaves himself bare. Are You Lonesome Tonight has been recorded countless times over the years. A lot of performers leave out the bridge because it's corny and way too long and hard. Elvis kept it in. So does Jack White. I wonder if You're lonesome tonight You know, someone said that The world's a stage And each must play a part Fate had me playing in love With you as my sweetheart Act one was where we met I loved you at first glance You read your lines so cleverly Never missed a cue Then came act two You seemed to change You acted strange and why I've never known.
30:50Honey, you lied when you said you loved me and I had no cause to doubt you. But I'd rather go on hearing your lies than to go on living without you. Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there with emptiness all around. If you won't come back to me, then maybe bring the curtain down. Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, I've been lonesome tonight.
31:42Whoa! Wait, you enjoyed that. I did. There's some nice parts where you can see playing that live. Now that I just did that, I played it once yesterday, reading this. But now playing it like that, I can see, wow, live, that really could get to be a really emotional song. So I didn't really think about it until just then What led you to think that just now because um it feels like well, it's in a mind It's got a lot of minor chords so that that's already gets you in that melancholy vibe, but it has it has that um
32:26What just occurred to me now is he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't really care that if she's lonesome It's he's lonesome that's the singer is lonesome and it's a it's a MacGuffin to pretend like I'm worried about you are you lonesome tonight? but it's really the singer is worried about himself so that could be you take that kind of emotional song and you put years and years on stage and then you put drugs in the mix and then in your own state of mind at the time you could be on to something there it could be a real diversion that it's too powerful to sing what's fascinating is the sung parts the singer is in control and he's worried about her.
33:11The spoken parts, the singer is vulnerable and he's confessing his own. And it's so screwed up. It's like, I know you lied to me and I wish you hadn't. I wish I didn't know that you lied to me because I'd rather be in the state of being deceived than know the truth, which is like 17 convolutions of neuroticism. He's still blaming her most of the lines. Still pointing the finger. White says you can't run from that kind of emotion, not if you're singing the song properly. And so when he writes songs, he tries to establish some distance between himself and the feelings he's singing about. I try to push it into a character standpoint rather than it being a self-confession for me.
34:00Because I think that would be really hard to consistently keep living that moment over and over and over again. I've definitely seen older artists ignoring certain parts of their certain songs in their career because it's probably too close to home about something or other. But you can't avoid a song's emotional effects all the time. And especially not when you have to read a soliloquy in the middle of it, which is what the Are You Lonesome Bridge is. A speech parachuted into the heart of the song. I had a little flub moment at one point trying to figure out, well, wait a minute. It's a waltz.
34:36You know, you have that, so if I'm like, I wonder if two, three, so one, two, three, one, two, three, two, three. So your brain kind of wants to go, I wonder if you're lonesome tonight. That's what your brain wants to do. You know someone said that the world's a stage and we must each play a part. Then it starts to get... Oh, I see it breaks down. Yeah, I mean, I can definitely say that this would be a lot easier if someone else was playing guitar and I could just recite that part. Wait, should I recite it while you play the guitar? Yeah, let's do that. Should we do that? Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to torture you with my rendition of The Spoken Bridge.
35:26Well, maybe later. I'm just saying, until I die, I can say I played with Jack White. And then, because how many opportunities am I going to get like this? I asked Jack White to help me edit the soliloquy. If one were to rewrite it, I'm thinking that you lose the first three lines. Fate had me playing in love, you as my sweetheart. Or even act one was when we met. Why don't they just start with Act 1? I did, Adam.
36:03Act 1 was where he met. I loved you at first glance. You read your lines so carefully. Never missed a cue. What did I do there? You said carefully instead of cleverly, but she said cleverly. Then came Act 2. You seemed to change. You acted strange. What did Jack White do there? The actual lyric is, you read your line so cleverly. He said, you read your line so carefully. Carefully for cleverly. A man singing one of the songs of his musical idol comes to the emotionally complex center. And what do we hear? A moment of vulnerability. Can he be as clever as Elvis? He's not sure. he must be careful parapraxis sometimes you know I love him so much that you know I'm afraid to learn more about certain things you know when you're so close to it and you've experienced certain things about you know nothing in comparison to what he went through but you're in the same we do the same kind of thing we perform and we go on stages and we make records and all this stuff I'm from a different time period but you notice these tiny little moments that are, when you see something, you're like, oh, I know exactly what that's about.
37:27I know exactly what that feels like.
37:34There are 10 known live recordings of Elvis performing Are You Lonesome Tonight? Starting in 1961 in a concert at Block Arena in Honolulu up to the end of Elvis's life in 1977. Alan Elms and Bruce Heller analyzed them all in their essay, Twelve Ways to Say Lonesome, assessing error and control in the music of Elvis Presley. Elms and Heller find that Elvis performs the sung portion of Are You Lonesome Tonight more or less flawlessly because the sung portion is the part of the song where the singer is in control. But in The Spoken Bridge, the narrator is suddenly the one who's been deceived and rejected.
38:18And that's the part Elvis can't get right. Elms and Heller count a total of 109 errors in those 10 live performances of The Spoken Bridge, 29 of which involve just four lines. I loved you at first glance, where he confesses the depths of his feelings. You seemed to change, you acted strange, where he testifies to his betrayal and rejection. And why I've never known, where he expresses his feelings of anger and victimization and with emptiness all around where he admits to his loneliness. The most problematic renditions of The Bridge are the later ones which come after the summer of 1972. What happens in the summer of 1972?
39:12And one day you went in and said, I'm leaving. There was another man in your life. He was your karate teacher, Mike Stone. And you went off then and lived with him. Priscilla Presley, back on the couch with Barbara Walters, America's primetime Freudian. It was said that Elvis tried to kill him or wanted him killed. Do you believe that? I think at that time, yes, he did. He wanted that to happen. I do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair Is your heart filled with pain Shall I come back Tell me dear Are you lonesome Oh Lord, Lord
40:18I wonder how... A man who fears betrayal and abandonment is betrayed and abandoned.
40:30And I had no cause to die.
40:38It's too much. He's a wreck. I'll see you, baby.
40:45Shall I come back? Again Tell me, dear Are you a long son?
41:01This is Jacob Goldstein from Business History. When the internet arrived, most people used it to look things up. Others saw what it could really do. The same is true with ChatGPT. ChatGPT work goes beyond answering questions. Give it a goal, plus things like notes, files, feedback, data, or project plans, and it can help create a brief, analysis, deck outline, tracker, or workflow. You stay in control, reviewing the work and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.
41:40Okay, let's talk about something everyone has an opinion on, healthcare. Everyone can agree that something this important should work better than it does. Turns out, patients aren't the only ones who think that. Optum does too, and it's why they're working day in and day out to improve it. Never heard of Optum? Think of them as the engine of healthcare. They bring together clinicians, care teams, and the way you get and manage your medications. and they use data and technology to help the health systems we all use work better as a whole, not as disconnected pieces. Because they connect all these pieces, Optum can take a more whole-person approach to healthcare, like helping patients connect to mental health support quickly and bringing primary care and prescription deliveries straight to their home so people can stay on top of their health.
42:29Those things make a big difference. And they show that Optum really is trying to make healthcare better, that their clinicians, pharmacists, data scientists, engineers, everyone is putting in the work to improve it every day. See what Optum's up to at Optum.com. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Life moves fast. At American Military University, they're ready to help you keep up. AMU's flexible, affordable online programs in cybersecurity, IT, space studies, and more are designed for service members, veterans, and their families. AMU provides the support you need to take the next step wherever life takes you.
43:10American Military University, made for what's next. Learn more at amu.apus.edu. After I left Jack White, I went to see Bobby Braddock, just down the street at the Sony Studios on Nashville's Music Row. This was just tune. Good. You may remember Bobby Braddock from season two of Revisionist History. He's the legendary songwriter I called the King of Tears. Braddock wanted to introduce me to a good friend of his, a singer-songwriter named Casey Bowles. Come on. That's the church across Alto. 30-something, long red hair, the kind of person who, if you touch, you expect a little jolt of static. It'll work.
43:59You're going to sing that song. You want me to sing that song? We were in the biggest of the Sony recording studios on the main floor, in a corner where the piano was. Casey sang Are You Lonesome Tonight with Bobby on the piano. Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Then we sat and they talked about Nashville. They talked about how they both grew up in the Church of Christ, the most strict of Southern fundamentalist denominations. And they talked about Elvis. My dad thought he was Elvis, I think. Yeah, he really, he was a Church of Christ song leader and really wanted to be a Jordan Ayer, badly.
44:52and so Ray Walker was one of the Jordanaires and he tried to emulate him by way of dress and hairstyle and so I grew up either hearing him say hello darling, nice to see you or doing this sort of, you know is it vaudeville style or just sort of a over the top modeling style I guess is modeling the way you'd say it? Modeling? Then Bobby Braddock started talking about recitations the spoken part in many older country songs. And he made the same point that Jack White did, that they're much easier if they're set to music, if you could just as easily sing them. Like on one of Braddock's most famous songs, he stopped loving her today.
45:35The recitation, like...
45:41She came to see him one last time. Oh, we all wonder if she would. You could sing that. She came to see him one last time. Oh, we all wondered if she would. And that works either way. But this is just like, we got this song, let's get a recitation, throw it in there. And Elvis made it work. And I'm thinking just instinctively, just because he was just so good. Recitations are unusual these days. Braddock hasn't written one since something he did for Toby Keith in the 1990s. Last successful recitation song I had was actually, well, actually it was a hip-hop thing, I Won't Talk About Me. But that was talking, talking, talking.
46:31See, Toby Keith, that's what I'm thinking about. But it was, you know, it's all in there. Wait, can you play a little slice of that? Do you remember? I can pretend like I'm Toby Keith. I never do that. I never do that. When I do that, I always do it with a karaoke thing where I get up there and play the thing. I want to talk about me. I want to talk about I. I want to talk about number one. Now, you talk about your work, how your boss is a jerk. You talk about your church and your head. Talk about the trouble you've been having with your brother and your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-lover, you know.
47:07But it fits that. And then the menstrual period line, which everybody said, you can't put that in a song. Nobody will ever cut it. and it was one of the biggest songs I ever had. About your medical starts and when you start. Take that out. Nobody recorded. Toby Keith did. He's probably the only one who would have, though. Then I showed them the prize. I brought it in my bag. My copy of the Handbook of Psychobiography containing the Heller and Elms essay. Hold on. I have my book here. I'll tell you. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah, that is fascinating. To a pair of Elvis fanatics, it was like I'd unearthed the Dead Sea Scrolls.
47:51What's the book? It's a book called Handbook of Psychobiography, and it has an essay on this song. Wow, Psychobiography. And so, yeah, so this guy has gone through a chart of all of the lyrical mistakes that Elvis made in every known live recording of... Oh, my gosh. Yeah. These were two songwriters, and I felt they immediately saw themselves in that chart. Do you find yourself making the kind of errors, sometimes even subtle ones, that we've been talking about? That's so interesting. I wrote a song about my mother called Somebody Something. And my mother is adorable. And whenever you heard about things going wrong or like some tumultuous story, it was my dad.
48:37And so I finally was like, you know what? Why aren't we the only person in the family that there's nothing I haven't written about? So I was trying to dig dirt on her, and there was nothing. And so I ended up writing this song about her called Somebody Something, and I cry every time I do it. And there is a line that says, you know, she's always been somebody something. She's lived every life but her own. And it's gone. I can't remember it right now. I don't know that feeling. I can't remember it. No. She's always been somebody something. She's been everything but alone. a daughter a mother a life a daughter a lover a wife and a mother she's lived every life but her own yes she's always been somebody something and there's a line that says you know she she wonders what it might be like to be somebody else and she wonders what it feels like to be free but she's always imagined being nobody's nothing and that's something she never want to be but that line usually is just gone and a lot of times I'll go hold on and divert and tell a funny story really quickly yeah what's the specific line that's gone is which one?
49:54what's gone again? she's always been somebody she's been everything but alone a daughter, a lover, a wife and a mother she's been everything but alone yeah Yeah. Yeah. Why is it that long? I don't know. I think that.
50:16I don't know. I think when you see when she's so when you see somebody give so much of themselves and that's truly the only thing that she will never experience. And I think it's what I've experienced the most of. A minute before we were joking about Toby Keith. Now Casey is pensive as she compares her mother's life to her own. Not being able to make a relationship work the first 18 ,000 times out of the gate, or officially the first two, and not being a mother. But still real close to her, right? Yeah, I love her. She's wonderful. Go to church with her, right? I do. I sit still, because she makes me.
50:56I stay awake, and it's good. When I was a kid, I'd get bored in church and my mother would reach down and pinch me. Oh, I got smacked. Wait, Casey, can you play that song for us? Or is it going to be two? Let's see. Okay. Okay, well, we'll see if this happens.
51:29She grew up playing cowgirl in a railroad town. Dreaming she'd see...oh shoot, hold on. There's a line about Elvis in this. That's just random. Hold on. Dreaming she'd she Hollywood. I'm gonna do it again.
51:58what did I just say sorry I'm thinking about mom she grew up playing cowgirl she grew up playing Cowgirl In a railroad town Dreaming she'd see Hollywood someday She knew some distant Friday night With a cigarette To hold just right Fate would come And carry her away As far as she could see from there. Those were just the f***ing backs of the... That's not right. Hold one second.
52:46My first reaction to Casey's failure of memory was to be embarrassed for her, worried that she had lost control. That's the way we're trained to think. Just listen to the words I've just used. Failure. Embarrassed. Worried. In one way or another, that's what this season of Revisionist History has been about, about the ways we judge each other for our mistakes and choices. The easiest thing in the world is to look at those mistakes and condemn. The much harder thing is to look at those mistakes and understand. She married in December, mid-work In a dress her mama made She looked all grown up standing there like that Had a honeymoon in Memphis town Yeah, she looked for Elvis all around Made love in the greyhound Coming back As far as she could see from there Those were just the facts of life You went from somebody's daughter To somebody's wife She's always this Parapraxis is not failure.
54:09When the performer slips, the audience is not cheated. It's the opposite. Parapraxis is a gift. I presented myself as interested in this story. But now you know that this subject doesn't just interest me, it worries me. Losing control is my great anxiety. When Jack White said, carefully, instead of cleverly, it was a hint that playing Elvis wasn't a trivial matter for him. It was a sacred act, carefully, full of care. And Elvis, after the loss of Priscilla, sang a song he'd sung a thousand times, only now in a way that gave the audience a window on his pain.
55:01Mistakes reveal our vulnerabilities They are the way the world understands us The way performers make their performances real
55:14So Bobby Braddock and I sat there Listening to Casey sing Tears in her eyes Fumbling to remember the lyrics of a song about her mother Fumbling not because her mother didn't matter to her, but because she did.
55:53She's lived every life but her own. She'd say that's just called being a woman. She's always there.
56:09Somebody, something.
56:14God, this is beautiful. Why are you covering your mouth? I'm just, it's just weird. because I've never, it's just weird when you're thinking about what it is. Like, I just thought, oh, bad memory, too many songs, old, too many songs in there. But at any point in time, I could pull out a rap from New Edition from 1982. Like, why is that in there? And something that you wrote is not in there. That is so weird. It's not weird. A lesser person would have sung it perfectly.
57:08Thank you for listening to Season 3 of Revisionist History. And if you liked this episode, you'll enjoy my new series launching later this year. It's called Broken Record, and you can subscribe right now on Apple Podcasts. Revisionist History is a Panoply production. The senior producer is Mia LaBelle with Jacob Smith and Camille Baptista. Our editor is Julia Barton. Flan Williams is our engineer. Fact-checking by Beth Johnson. Original music by Luis Guerra. Special thanks to Kim Green and Hal Humphreys of Storyboard EMP in Nashville. And here in New York, thanks to Jason Gambrell, Evan Viola, Rachel Strom, Nicole Bunsis, Kate Mescal, Kristen Meinzer, Carly Migliore, Andy Bowers, and of course, El Jefe, Jacob Weisberg.
58:00I'm Malcolm Gladwell.
58:18Okay.
58:25So it would be a wonder if you're lonesome tonight. You know, someone said that the world's a stage and each must play a part. Fate had me playing in love You as my sweetheart Act one was when we met I loved you at first glance You read your lines so cleverly Never missed a cue Then came act two You seemed to change And you acted strange And why, I'll never know Honey, you lied when you said you loved me And I had no cause to doubt you But I'd rather go on hearing your lies Than go on living without you Now the stage is bare And I'm standing there With emptiness all around And if you won't come back to me Then make them bring the curtain down How am I doing?
59:36That's nice. Very good. I'm not very musical. No, it's very good. It's good.
59:44One last thing before you go. You know that feeling when feedback, notes, and data are coming in from every direction? ChatGPT work can make sense of it all, turning scattered inputs into ready-to-review work. With your permission, work in ChatGPT can gather context from apps and files, summarize incoming messages, rebuild decks, and help finalize high-quality documents for your team or clients. Stay in control as you move from a goal to polished work faster with ChatGPT work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app today and take on your most ambitious work. Let's talk about something everyone has an opinion on, healthcare.
1:00:21We all know it should work better than it does. Optum believes that too, and they're trying to improve it. They're helping healthcare teams and pharmacy services work together, like bringing primary care and prescription drugs straight to your home so you can stay on top of your health. Optum's also building technology that connects the whole healthcare system so it can better take care of the whole person, you. Optum is making healthcare work as one for everyone. See what Optum's up to at Optum.com. Brilliant is an online math tutor that gives kids the guidance and support they need to understand lessons step by step.
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From the publisher
Malcolm’s habit of reading footnotes leads him to the psychologist Alan Elms, which leads him to the one song Elvis couldn’t sing. We revisit this 2018 episode as part of our encore music series.
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