In honor of the day of Elvis Presley’s death, I post this clip which features one of my favorite vocal performances in Elvis Presley’s career.
What he does here in the performance itself is equally interesting to me (it was part of his “comeback special” in 1968 and was recorded two months after Martin Luther King’s assassination). He sings with a passion that vibrates out of his calm handsome face, you can feel the depths he is reaching (watch the expression on his face in the pause he takes at around the 1:28-29 mark – whatever is going on with him there is very very real), but I am most interested in his gestures, and his use of himself physically.
This is something that obviously got him a lot of attention early on in his career, with his sexuality expressed through how he moved. There’s a reason why young girls went nuts when they watched him.
But here, in the middle of very serious days, he is an adult man now, and he is doing something else.
His gestures are dialed down, and very contained, but not stiff: if anything they are even more visceral. When he moves, he means it.
I am particularly fascinated by his swinging right arm in the last buildup in the song (starting at around the 2:30 mark in earnest, although it shows up earlier). The swinging goes on far longer than it seems it should, and therefore the gesture feels honest, almost vulnerable. It doesn’t seem planned. His body wanted to do this, and so he let his body go. He is swinging himself into the music, driving the music along, yes, but there is an objective in that gesture. The objective is coiled-up and yet innocent too, there’s a purity in it. It’s almost like he’s a little kid, gearing up for an attack on his friend’s fort in the woods. The swinging arm, repetitive, like “Come on, come on, let’s do this thing, let’s do this thing, we know what we need to do, let’s do it.”
There’s a compulsive quality to the gesture, which shows his inherent musicianship, I think, the sense that he is at one with the song. It’s not just his voice that is an “instrument”, but his body.
But more than anything else that I have said here, what I see in that swinging arm gesture is emotion.
Elvis was Oliver Reed’s favorite movie actor. Elvis and Brando were his top, about equal, but he had much more respect for Elvis technically, and in terms of expression. You’ve shown us why in this clip and your analysis, Sheila. I LOVE it when you do that!
Kent – awww, thanks! I love this performance – not just vocally but his physicality which is very specific and shows how incredible he was. It’s so raw. You can feel how he’s gearing himself up to “go there” because the song requires it. Of course because he’s Elvis he didn’t need a whole lot of permission to “go there” – he just did it naturally. It was who he was as a performer. But still: I like performances where I feel like the performer has left a little bit of himself behind – that it actually COST him something to give that performance. That’s what I feel from him here.
This is a favorite of mine-I can watch it again and again. You hit the nail on the head, it is so “raw”, I can physically feel the power of the performance.
Maureen – I know, it does come across physically – one of the most startling things about it. I also never get sick of watching it.
You know Sheila, this was a Binder show which meant that the big orchestral songs had pre-recorded music tracks, but the vocals were live. The black suit stuff in the round was 100% live. Even in a recording studio Elvis, like Sinatra and Nat King Cole, would keep the band live for each track. They dug the interplay and variations with musicians. True musical craftsmen.
Yes, that is what is missing in so many young singers today – even though they have the pipes: musicianship.
Della Reese does a fantastic rendition of this wonderful song in a Touched by an Angel episode: S1E12 – In the Name of God. She sings this in a way that can really rock the house and it brings tears to my eyes. Right now you can view this episode on Pluto TV.
Since I was a kid I have been an Elvis fan even coming from a Spanish background. His music was contagious, now understanding what he is saying, plus his gestures on that video he’s not just singing he’s also communicating, and urging what to do considering the country atmosphere at the time . Totally agree with this article. I am so glad I am not the only one who noticed it.