max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#499: elvis - when my blue turns to gold again & blue christmas (1968)

when elvis presley took the stage for the first time in seven years to record his ‘68 comeback special, inviting along his original memphis bandmates scotty moore and d.j. fontana, even the reindeer dropped what they were doing to listen to their radios. when blue christmas came on in the middle of when my blue turns to gold, they quietly shed a few salty tears of joy. but when rca music executives spliced martina mcbride into the footage for last year’s elvis christmas duets album, santa claus got so sad that he died. the holidays are now gone forever.

#489: arthur “big boy” crudup - my baby left me (1972)

sad music doesn’t have to be backed up by sad stories, but it helps. forest mississippi’s arthur “big boy” crudup never got royalties for writing cosmically important early elvis presley hits like that’s all right mama and my baby left me, and by the time this documentary was filmed he’d gone back to field labor and bootlegging. “if i could get that money, i could really put out a song. i really could. i could really put out one that i believe would not knock the ceiling out,” he says in the film. “but as i’ve not got that money, what have i got to put out a song about? sometimes i’ll be sitting down, i’ll be alone, and a verse or two will come to me. and i’ll say, aw, forget about it.” the documentary didn’t help him collect royalties. he died four years later.

#285: elvis presley - poke salad annie (1970)

“what are you looking at back there? some of you all who haven’t been down south too much, i’m going to tell you a little story so as you’ll understand what i’m talking about. down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods of the fields, and it looks something like a turnip green. and everybody calls it poke salad. and that’s poke! salad! poke! hut, two, three, four, hut, hut, two, three, four, hut, hut, two, three, four, yeah, ang, ang, ang, mom, mom, pop, pop, huh, huh, huh, bop, two, three, four, hut, hut, hut, two, three, four. learned that in the army. hut, two, three, four, four, ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh, cha, cha. anyway, i used to know a girl that lived down there. she used to go out in the evenings and pick a mess of it, carry it home and cook it for supper. just about all they had to eat, but they did alright.”

as peter guralnick’s heavenly two-volume biography of elvis confirms, he was totally fucking way out of his mind in all sorts of profound ways. but he also moved like a messiah, and watch the whole thing here because elvis (what a guy) really goes for it.

#150: elvis presley - return to sender (1962)

any musical number featured in a film called girls! girls! girls!, and any song that uses the united states postal service as a plot device, and any film clip that begins: “doctor livingstone! somehow this isn’t how i imagined the big reconciliation,” and any early elvis presley song that features the baritone saxophone stylings of bobby keys, who later played with the rolling stones and once threw a television off a 10th floor hotel balcony with keith richards, is okay by me.

ps. this is video #150. whoa.

#78: elvis presley - bosom of abraham (1970)

happy easter, christians! this weekend my peoples celebrated purim, which i think involves three-cornered hats and little noisemakers, whereas our jesus-adoring neighbors get to eat cadbury creme eggs, fix bloody marys, cavort around with rabbits, and go on eater hunts in large estate lawns.

if i’m lucky, maybe one day i’ll get to celebrate easter at an open-hearted christian friend’s house. in the meantime, i’m happy watching videos of obesity-era elvis lovingly chuckle his way through hymnals. for a man that guzzled barbiturates and wore gold-trim track suits, he sure loved his gospel.

#48: elvis presley - heartbreak hotel (1956)

compared to johnny cash, elvis presley was a softhearted prettyboy pansy. and yet even though they started in the same sun records recording studio, one become a whole lot more important than the other. the conclusion to draw here is that america likes sissies: elvis, wayne newton, michael jackson, clay aiken.

(and despite elvis’ hide-your-daughters reputation, he really was a weirdo—as discussed in the best music biography of all time, it turned out that he liked calling his girlfriends “mommy” while filming them sitting quietly in white underwear and white socks. true story.)

on the plus side, his band sounded awfully good. plus, it’s hard to disregard a performer when he can move his legs like this.

#7: johnny cash and louis armstrong - blue yodel #9 (1970)

this is the single wooziest song ever aired on national television: jimmie rodgers’ 1930 hit about a tennesee hustler, played by louis armstrong (who starred on the original version forty years earlier) and johnny motherfucking cash—together on cash’s abc tv show.

armstrong yucks it up in the beginning (“we’ll give it to them in black and white!”), but goes insane during the song. cash’s macho, pill-popping, skirt-chasing country drawl goes beautifully with louis’ dixieland, steamboat, bright-gold brass. two old men never sounded so lascivious.

PS here’s johnny cash, years earlier, impersonating an elvis impersonater

PPS here’s andy kaufman, years later, impersonating elvis on johnny cash’s show