{"id":56133,"date":"2012-07-04T11:21:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T15:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=56133"},"modified":"2012-07-04T13:51:12","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T17:51:12","slug":"america-god-shed-his-grace-on-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=56133","title":{"rendered":"America, God Shed His Grace On Thee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yyoLpJ6J_4Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Elvis singing an absolutely phenomenal and sincere version of &#8220;America the Beautiful&#8221;.  It&#8217;s live.  (Speaking of which, go check out <a href=\"http:\/\/themysterytrainblog.com\/2012\/07\/04\/from-sea-to-shining-sea\/\">The Mystery Train<\/a>&#8216;s breakdown of the different performances of this song.) <\/p>\n<p>Listen to the spoken-word part.  Only Elvis could get away with such phraseology.  Listen to the choices he makes, vocally, when he speaks.  It&#8217;s deliberate, it&#8217;s intuitive, it&#8217;s filled with heart.  He&#8217;s a preacher.  He&#8217;s <i>dramatic<\/i>.  Listen to him speak &#8220;God shed his grace on thee&#8221;.  Listen to where he pauses in that line.  Listen to the small shake he puts into his voice, and think of him as a small boy sitting in the rough passionate Pentecostal churches of his youth, and think of him soaking up how those powerful men of faith spoke.  <\/p>\n<p>You can only pull something like that off if you <i>mean it<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>And Elvis always always meant it.  He meant everything he did.  If you think that&#8217;s easy, then try it some time.<\/p>\n<p>Happy birthday, America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elvis singing an absolutely phenomenal and sincere version of &#8220;America the Beautiful&#8221;. It&#8217;s live. (Speaking of which, go check out The Mystery Train&#8216;s breakdown of the different performances of this song.) Listen to the spoken-word part. Only Elvis could get &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=56133\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,39],"tags":[2095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56133"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56136,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56133\/revisions\/56136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}