For some reason it was not until I re-visited the DVD last year after a friend and I at work had been discussing our love for old Elvis movies, that I really sat up and took notice of this song. I love watching him sing that one and I’m not even American so goodness how you guys across the pond must feel.īut the song I did want to write about was actually If I Can Dream from the ’68 Comeback Special. This song wasn’t actually written specifically for him but I cannot think of any artist for whom it could have had more significance, thus his obvious empathy with the music, lyrics and drama of the piece. None more so than during the sweet Bahamian lullaby segment within An American Trilogy. In some of the Las Vegas shows, there are close-up shots where you can see the small muscles in his face move in time to the nuances of the music.
So, when he performed live over ten years later, in the intimate setting of the the Comeback Special studio at Burbank, you could really tell he was not just singing these songs he was “feeling them” with ever fibre of his being. The reason he got into such bother in the 1950s with his pelvic rotations and thrusts, was simply because he couldn’t stop himself! The music he developed with his band was a hybrid, particular to him and his Mississippi roots, of hillbilly, gospel, country and rhythm & blues. The thing with Elvis however, and I absolutely understand that he is not for everyone, is that when you watched him perform, you could really tell that he “felt the music” like no other.
Hard to believe that prior to the ’68 Comeback Special he had not performed live since 1961. Since writing about Elvis Presleylast time, and how it came about that the first album I ever bought was one of his, I have done a lot more reading about “The King” and how he re-emerged in 1968 as one of the world’s most electrifying live performers.
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