Tuesday April 5, 2022 ”Kentucky Rain” Elvis Presley

As we continue with our April showers theme I want to test your memory and ask when was the last time we heard from Elvis Presley on Song of the Day?  Who said last month, anyone say one year ago….?  Astonishing as it may seem we have never had the King of rock & roll on Song of the Day…and shame, shame on me!!

There is so much that has been written about Elvis and so much that we all know, so I thought that today we would dive a bit deeper into the legend.  So here goes.

Performing "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" in Las Vegas in 1969, Elvis did one of his frequent lyric changes to amuse himself.  Instead of "Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?", he sang "Do you look at your bald head and wish you had hair?"  Get that song in your head and drop that lyric in for fun.
Elvis' popularity faded in the 1960's with the rise of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and others.  He would however successfully relaunch his career with a 1968 television special that came about when Elvis had walked down a busy Los Angeles street and no one recognized or approached him.

This seems crazy but Elvis played only five concerts outside the U.S., all on a 3-day tour of Canada in 1957.  Many believed that the reason why he never toured abroad was that his longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was an illegal immigrant from Holland who feared he would have been deported had he applied for a U.S. passport.

“Kentucky Rain” was co-written by country star Eddie Rabbit and although Elvis recorded over six hundred songs he didn’t write any of them.
Stay safe and well…and some of the videos that accompany our songs of the day can be really well done, and today's by "Historicus Joe" is one of them.

Seven lonely days

And a dozen towns ago

I reached out one night and you were gone

Don't know why you'd run

What you're running to or from

All I know is I want to bring you home

So I'm walking in the rain

Thumbing for a ride

On this lonely Kentucky back road

I've loved you much too long

My love's too strong

To let you go, never knowing

What went wrong

Kentucky rain keeps pouring down

And up ahead's another town that I'll go walking through

With the rain in my shoes (rain in my shoes)

Searchin' for you

In the cold Kentucky rain

In the cold Kentucky rain

Showed your photograph

To some old gray-bearded men

Sitting on a bench outside a gen'ral store

They said "yes, she's been here"

But their memory wasn't clear

Was it yesterday?

No, wait, the day before?

Finally got a ride

With a preacher man who asked

"Where you bound on such a cold dark afternoon?"

As we drove on through the rain

As he listened, I explained

And he left me with a prayer

That I'd find you

Kentucky rain keeps pouring down

And up ahead's another town that I'll go walking through

With the rain in my shoes (rain in my shoes)

Searchin' for you

In the cold Kentucky rain

In the cold Kentucky rain

In the cold Kentucky rain

In the cold Kentucky rain