Encore: Analysis, Parapraxis, Elvis

Malcolm’s habit of reading footnotes leads him to the psychologist Alan Elms, which leads him to the one song Elvis couldn’t sing. We revisit this 2018 episode as part of our encore music series. Get ad-free episodes to Revisionist History by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin http://apple.co/pushkin Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus https://www.pushkin.fm/join-pushkin See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call. The most important one being, are you ready? That's where ChatGPT comes in. Give it a goal, add your files, and ask chat to help you map out different scenarios for the future of your business. So when growth is on the table, you've got an expansion plan ready to implement. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 0:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is a paid message from Apple Card. It's easy, I think, in the hubbub of our lives to lose track of our spending. We pay the bills and move on, and don't understand the deeper patterns in our spending, the many different decisions we're making knowingly or unknowingly. You have to understand where your money is going in order to make better decisions about it. That's one reason Apple Card stands out to me. You can earn unlimited daily cash back on every purchase you make. I also appreciate the simplicity. Apple Card doesn't have annual, late, or over the limit fees. No fees ever. There's even an option to open a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. And while I haven't done it yet,

• 1:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  if I do, my daily cash can grow automatically over time without any extra effort. When you better understand your spending habits, it's easier to make your money work harder for you. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.74% to 27.99% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of October 1, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or card.apple.com. Savings is available to Apple Card owners, subject to eligibility. Savings and Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch, Member FDIC.

• 1:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 2:08Malcolm Gladwell?

  To introduce this episode, I just want to relate how random my journey to it was. I was reading a book, I can't even remember what it was, and in a footnote—I always read the footnotes—the author said, "The psychologist whose work she was referring to had done a very strange paper once about Elvis." At which point, I stopped reading the book and looked up the very strange paper about Elvis. It was by Alan Elms. It was amazing. So immediately, I go to the next question: Was Alan Elms still alive? Yes, living in Davis, California. Next step: I gotta go see him. So I immediately fly to San Francisco, rent a car. But the rental agency is out of all cars, except for a bright canary-yellow Chevy Corvette,

• 2:53Malcolm Gladwell?

  which I take happily. But then halfway to Davis, driving at speeds that are very, very far from legal, I start thinking, "What's this guy gonna think of me if I show up in a bright canary-yellow Corvette? He's a brilliant psychologist. I don't want him prejudging me." So I park it around the corner, walk to his house, and spend a lovely afternoon with him. Sadly, he was feeling poorly at the time, and didn't speak well enough for me to use a tape of his interview. But my spontaneous journey set the correct tone, I think, for this whole episode, which is that it was intended to be a caper—a grand caper—in which many crazy, unexpected things happen. And, as you will discover, so it was.

• 3:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  By the way, the thing that Alan Elms and I talked the most about was not actually his Elvis paper. It was another even more genius thing he once wrote about the Wizard of Oz, which I promise you that I will get to one day here at Revisionist History. Join me for a walk down Revisionist History memory lane.

• 4:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is in a very formal, European-style building on a quiet side street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Oak tables, high ceilings. In the library, long ribbons of leather-bound volumes and five different busses of Sigmund Freud, all in a row. I went there to meet with the society's president, Michelle Press, a psychoanalyst herself with that lovely quality of patience and openness the best therapists always have. I wanted to talk with her about a subject that I've always found deeply interesting: what Freud called paraprisis.

• 4:44Malcolm Gladwell?

  But not just anyone's paraprisis. The king's paraprisis.

• 4:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. After the first two episodes on memory earlier this season, I decided to do a third. It involves an odyssey.

• 5:14Malcolm Gladwell?

  This odyssey took me from the pages of the Handbook of Psychobiography to a shrine in Tennessee, to the legendary Battery Studios in Times Square, and to the hushed offices of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, where I sat with Michelle Press in search of an answer to a simple question: what if a singer couldn't remember the words to a song? A song he'd sung a thousand times? Particular parts of the song? The same part of the song, over and over? What would that tell us about the singer?

• 5:55Speaker 02

  It was a term in German, faulty acts or faulty functions. It would be slips of the tongue. It could be misreadings, mishearings. But it's Freud's invention.

• 6:06Malcolm Gladwell?

  Michelle Press is talking about paraprapaxis. From the Greek, para meaning abnormal, beyond, praxis meaning act. Abnormal speech acts. Or, as they are more colloquially known, Freudian slips. Does Freud mean that there are no accidental slips? Or that if you look at the range of accidental slips, you can find meaning in some?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  So when you read him, he doesn't want to sound that kind of definitive. He'll say, yes, maybe one might prove that there are some that are truly accidental or truly a result of fatigue or of maybe some, you know, medical illness. But he said, if you do the work, one will find the reasons for the slip, that they're not accidental, that they have, he called it a sense. And that that sense has to do with unconscious forces or unconscious ideas that are trying to find expression but are, because they're unacceptable, they emerge in these ways when one might be unguarded.

• 7:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  Now, is that concept of unacceptability central to the notion of paraprapaxis?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:38Malcolm Gladwell?

  In 1956, early in his career, Elvis Presley recorded a song called "Old Shep." It's a sentimental song about a boy and his dog Shep, written in the 1930s by Red Foley. The dog gets old and sick. The vet says, there's no hope. The boy aims his rifle at Shep to put him out of his misery, but he can't pull the trigger. He lies down next to Shep, cradles him in his arms as the dog dies. And the song ends.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Old Shep has gone where the good dog has gone. And no more with old Shep will I roam. But if dogs have a heaven, there's one thing I know. Old Shep has a wonderful home.

• 8:46Malcolm Gladwell?

  "Old Shep" is not one of Elvis's more famous songs. But in an essay published in 2005 on Elvis, the psychologists Alan Elms and Bruce Heller have an aside about a small but significant discrepancy between the original version of "Old Shep" and Elvis's cover. I'm going to come back to Heller and Elms in a while because they really do the most thorough analysis of Elvis's lyrical paraprapaxis. But let's start with "Old Shep." Listen to Hank Snow performing the lyrics as they were originally written. "The boy has just put away his gun, realizing he can't shoot Shep."

• 9:26Speaker 04

  So I threw down that old gun, ran right up to his side. He laid his faithful old head right on my knee. And friends, I stroked the best pal that a man ever found. I even cried so I scarcely could see.

• 9:56Malcolm Gladwell?

  Now listen to Elvis sing his version.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  I had struck the best friend that a man ever had. I cried so I scarcely could see.

• 10:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  Hank Snow sings, "I stroked the best pal a man ever found." Meaning that the boy considers an act of violence against his best pal, then decides against it, and takes instead the path of nurture and sympathy. He recovers his humanity. But Elvis sings, "I had struck the best friend a man ever had," which turns the meaning of the song completely upside down. The boy does not recover his humanity. He now holds himself responsible for an act of violence against Shep, an act of violence that, in fact, he did not commit. Stroke becomes struck, and all of a sudden, a song about moral redemption turns into a song about morbid remorse.

• 11:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  Now, I suppose you can say, stroke, struck, whatever. Those two words sound the same. It's just a cover. But it's not just a cover. Elvis was obsessed with old Shep. It's the first song he ever learned on the guitar. He played it incessantly as a child. At age 10, he played it at the Mississippi Alabama Fair, his first public performance. He played it at his high school talent show and won. He played it on dates with girls. He played it well into his career. And why does the song resonate so much with him? It's a song about love, betrayal, and loss, themes that are at the center of Elvis's life. He's a twinless twin, someone whose twin died in utero,

• 11:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  and he's obsessed by that fact. He brings it up again and again, the loss of someone who should have been his closest friend. Elvis's mother Gladys is, to say the least, unusual. She's controlling, intense. He calls her baby. Gladys died when Elvis was just 23. When he first saw her casket, he threw himself on top of her body, then stepped back and talked about how beautiful she was while pointing to her dead feet. He called them "her little suities." He did this again and again. At the end of the funeral service, he lay on top of her casket, saying, "I want to go with you. I don't want to stay here.

• 12:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  I can't be without you."

• 12:35Malcolm Gladwell?

  And we haven't even gotten to Priscilla, Elvis's wife. He spotted her when she was 14 and eventually convinced her to move in with him in Memphis.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  Once Elvis took you to a moor.

• 12:47Speaker 06

  Yes, he did.

• 12:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is Priscilla, being interviewed by Barbara Walters in 1985.

• 12:55Speaker 05

  Why? Why that fascination with dead bodies?

• 12:58Speaker 06

  I don't know. I don't know what the fascination was. This is not the first time that he had done this. I don't know if it was for the shock value, you know, to see how people would react, or just for his own thrill of it.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  You wrote, "There were times when you and Elvis spent days in the bedroom." Freezing bedroom, he liked it very cold. The windows with blackout drapes so no sunlight entered, day after day.

• 13:22Speaker 06

  Uh huh.

• 13:24Speaker 06

  It went into weeks, I guess. We stayed like that. We had our food delivered by the door. And, um, it was cold. I mean, he did like it cold. And it was dark. And it could get real lonely. And that's, that's how he, uh, liked it at times. Like a cocoon. Almost like a womb, I guess.

• 13:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  You think? Priscilla and Barbara Walters are on a white couch, surrounded by pink flowers. Priscilla is in a strapless sundress. She looks amazing. Barbara Walters turns to her and says, "Elvis controlled your looks, your clothes, your hair, your makeup. He controlled you totally." Priscilla says, "Yes, he did, then."

• 14:12Speaker 05

  Six years you lived there before he decided to marry you. In those six years of sleeping with him every night, he never had intercourse with you. You wrote in your book that there were times when you begged him. Six years of that?

• 14:31Speaker 06

  So why? Well, again, you know, I can only go back to what his concept was, is what he wanted in a woman. And somewhere, he, along in his past, he said that he wanted a virgin.

• 14:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  Elvis is complicated. And what does Freud's theory of paraprisis say? That complicated feelings, inappropriate, maybe unacceptable feelings, are normally suppressed, but every now and again, some little bit of that buried emotion slips out. And if you're paying attention and listening closely, that little slip can tell you something. Struck for stroke. But old Shep is just the beginning. For Elvis, the real paraprisis occurs in "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", a song originally written in the 1920s and which Elvis took to the top of the charts just after he came out of the Army.

• 16:01Malcolm Gladwell?

  Elvis at the RCA Studios on Music Row in Nashville, April 4, 1960. The recordings from the original session now held in the Sony Music Archive.

• 16:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, this is, there's numerous takes here, so they fall apart, they make a mistake and what have you.

• 16:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  John Jackson and Vic Anisini from Sony, me, all listening together at the legendary Battery Studios in Manhattan, where everyone from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen recorded. Holy ground. I started my quest at the very beginning.

• 16:59Malcolm Gladwell?

  This voice is so amazing.

• 17:02Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 17:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  Is he, when he records that, are the Jordanaires singing along with him? Or they're laying that track down separately?

• 17:08Speaker 08

  No, live. Everything's live. Yeah, everything's live, yeah. He always preferred to have everyone in one room.

• 17:14Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 08

  And record live. Oh, even in one room, not in booths? No, no, no, no, he hated booths.

• 17:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  Recording the song was not Elvis's idea. It was a favorite of the wife of his manager, Tom Parker. In the studio, Elvis asked that the lights be turned off, so the room was in darkness. He did five takes. He didn't like any of them.

• 17:35Speaker 07

  It was four in the morning when he recorded it. So he made everyone get out of the studio, go away, and then he just, you know, did it.

• 17:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 07

  And then they, this was the second take, which they told him of the background singers, you know, pee popped, we're gonna have to, because he said, "Just stop the tape, you know, I'm done." They said, "Just do it once more, because, you know, we hit a pee pop on there." So the third take ends up being the master.

• 17:57Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, I see.

• 17:57Speaker 07

  And they held it, the label held it back for seven, eight months.

• 18:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, they didn't realize what they had on their hands.

• 18:02Speaker 07

  Yeah. It was seven months, I think, after he recorded it, they finally released it as a single, and it didn't go out. He had done eight songs for Elvis's back, and this was just like, "Yeah, just try this one."

• 18:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  Recorded in the wee hours of the morning, in darkness, as a favor to someone else, a song neither Elvis nor his label particularly liked. It's almost like the song had a curse on it, right from the beginning. And from then on, Elvis could never quite get it right. I talked about this with Michelle Press at the New York Psychoanalytic Society. Elvis wasn't typically someone who forgot the words to the songs he sang. There's all these examples, sort of his life, of him being able to recite, to sing from memory. Massive amounts of stuff.

• 18:53Malcolm Gladwell?

  I'm worried, I'm interested about that. There's a little slip I'm worried about. I said, I'm worried about that. I'm interested in that. And I'm wondering, what the, what would you make of that? As a psychoanalyst? I try to go on, but of course, I'm talking to a hardcore Freudian. I meant to say I was interested, but what came out was worried.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm still caught on your slip, obviously, thinking.

• 19:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  What do you, what do you make of it?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  So one thought was whether the slip might be a key to something that you're figuring out and puzzling with, with him. Because you're, right now, you're immersed in him.

• 19:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, I am. I've been singing this song under my breath for months. I can't understand why. I've never been an Elvis fan. I don't own a single song of his. Or am I, am I drawn to this story because isn't this story that I'm talking to you, the great anxiety of anyone in a creative field? That moment when you lose control, right? Where the, the presentation to the audience is unmasked. I want to, I want to show you. I take out my laptop, pull up YouTube. There's a mountain of Elvis on YouTube. One of the last performances of his life. It's bananas.

• 20:21Malcolm Gladwell?

  I mean, he just, it's, he's singing a song he's singing thousands of times and he just completely loses control of it. Now I can skip it. Okay, here, here comes.

• 20:40Speaker 09

  I wonder if you once have a night. You know, someone said, the world's a stage and each of us play a part. Playhead, I'm playing in there. A bit of, a bit of plus tags. You read your lines correctly, never leave. Never missed a cue. Then came back too. You forgot the words, you need to change, you fool.

• 21:07Malcolm Gladwell?

  When I first saw it, it, as someone in a, I mean, I'm not Elvis, but I'm someone in a creative field, it terrified me. It's like, up on stage, doing what he's paid to do, and he, he just...

• 21:45Malcolm Gladwell?

  Every live performance he's ever given of this, that we have on tape, he mangles the bridge. He can't do it right. It's, he's returning to this song again and again and again and again and again, and doing the same kind of...

• 21:58Speaker 02

  In this particular, you know, it's kind of like a rap.

• 22:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's always the bridge, so, the singing part...

• 22:01Speaker 02

  He's almost, over how many years did this go on?

• 22:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  Years.

• 22:07Speaker 07

  Okay, in 1982, this laughing version was a regular hit in the UK, and reached on the 25th in the British Singles Chart.

• 22:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  At Battery Studios, I made the Sony guys play every version they had. They even have names: Laughing Elvis, Crazy Elvis, each one stranger than the one before.

• 22:28Speaker 10

  The world's a stage, and each must play a part.

• 22:43Speaker 10

  Oh, God. Oh, man, I'll tell you.

• 22:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  There's sweat and tears streaming down his face.

• 22:58Speaker 10

  And I had no cost to die for.

• 23:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  It goes on like this, on and on.

• 23:08Speaker 10

  Sing it, baby.

• 23:13Speaker 10

  Shall I come again? Tell me, dear, are you lost something to me?

• 23:31Speaker 03

  That's it, man. Fourteen years running down the drain, boy, I'll tell you.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 24:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez has racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors, to separate fact from fiction.

• 25:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a paid message from Apple Card. It's easy, I think, in the hubbub of our lives to lose track of our spending. We pay the bills and move on and don't understand the deeper patterns in our spending, the many different decisions we're making knowingly or unknowingly. You have to understand where your money is going in order to make better decisions about it. That's one reason Apple Card stands out to me. You can earn unlimited daily cash back on every purchase you make. I also appreciate the simplicity.

• 25:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  Apple Card doesn't have annual, late, or over the limit fees. No fees ever. There's even an option to open a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. And while I haven't done it yet, if I do, my daily cash can grow automatically over time without any extra effort. When you better understand your spending habits, it's easier to make your money work harder for you. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.74% to 27.99% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of October 1, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or card.apple.com.

• 26:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings and Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch, Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 26:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  Have you ever played this song before?

• 26:49Speaker 11

  No, I never played it before. It's funny, I've played a bunch of, um, check, I've played a bunch of his stuff. Would you mind flipping the standby switch on the back?

• 27:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  I'm with Jack White at his studio in Nashville. Third Man Records. Jack White, formerly of The White Stripes, one of the great rock and rollers of his generation, and a huge Elvis fan. He has a shrine to Elvis in his hallway. Actual shrine. All that's missing is flowers. We met in his private office. Lots of black and yellow and leather and taxidermy. He sat on the couch with a guitar. Do you play, um, do you play Elvis songs in concert?

• 27:30Speaker 11

  Sometimes I do, uh, like a.

• 27:36Speaker 11

  What's that? Treat me like a fool. Treat me mean a fool. Oh, darling, I want you to love me. Love me just the same. Treat me just the same. Oh, love me. Sometimes I do that one.

• 27:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  I was gonna say, don't stop. I'm enjoying it.

• 28:03Malcolm Gladwell?

  Anything, any other ones you do? Wait, by the way, why do you, why that one? What's about that song?

• 28:09Speaker 11

  Um, I had heard that early from a band called The Flat Doo with Jets that I really liked, and I didn't know it was Elvis. And then when I'd heard the Elvis version, I'd connected the two. Like, oh, now I really want it. And I started doing it when I played in coffeehouses. I started playing that. I was like 16, yeah, so. That goes back. Which is funny, I'd eventually heard a story of Robert Plant telling Elvis he loved that song when Led Zeppelin met Elvis. And then when they walked out of the hallway, that Elvis poked his head out in the hallway and sang that song to Robert Plant. They sang it back to each other and we were crying. And it must have been an amazing moment.

• 28:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  Jack White owns the original acetate pressing of Elvis's first recording from 1953, "My Happiness." After we talked, White took me into his vault to show it to me. It's priceless. He asked me if I wanted to hold it. I was too terrified to say yes. Jack White seemed like the right person to see to try and understand Elvis's problem in "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

• 29:12Speaker 11

  All right, let me see if I can take a crack. I might have to give it a couple whirls, but.

• 29:27Speaker 11

  Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?

• 29:46Speaker 11

  Does your memory stray to a bright summer day? When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?

• 30:04Speaker 11

  Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight?

• 30:40Malcolm Gladwell?

  That's the first half of the song. The sung version, all questions. A man is wondering whether his lover misses him. Then comes the spoken bridge, in which the emotional tables are turned and the man leaves himself bare. "Are you lonesome tonight?" has been recorded countless times over the years. A lot of performers leave out the bridge because it's corny and way too long and hard. Elvis kept it in. So does Jack White.

• 31:10Speaker 11

  I wonder if you're lonesome tonight? You know, someone said that the world's a stage and each must play a part. Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart. That one was where we met. I loved you at first glance. You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue. Then came act two. You seemed to change. You acted strange. And why, I've never known. Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. And I had no cause to doubt you.

• 31:53Speaker 11

  But I'd rather go on hearing your lies than to go on living without you. Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there with emptiness all around. And if you won't come back to me, then maybe bring the curtain down.

• 32:17Speaker 11

  Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome tonight?

• 32:38Malcolm Gladwell?

  Wait, you enjoyed that?

• 32:42Speaker 11

  I did. There's some nice parts. Where it gets the... You can see, playing that live, now that I just did that, like, well, we just did that. I played it once yesterday, like, reading this.

• 32:57Speaker 11

  But now, playing it like that, I could see, wow, live, you could really, that really could get to be a really emotional song. So, I didn't really think about it till just then.

• 33:06Malcolm Gladwell?

  What led you to think that just now?

• 33:08Speaker 11

  Because it feels like, well, it's in a minor, it's got a lot of minor chords, so that already gets you in that melancholy vibe, but it has that, um...

• 33:20Speaker 11

  What just occurred to me now is, he doesn't really care that if she's lonesome, it's if he's lonesome. The singer is lonesome. And it's a MacGuffin to pretend like, "I'm worried about you. Are you lonesome tonight?", you know? But it's really, the singer is worried about himself. So, that could be, you know, you take that kind of emotional song and you put years and years on stage, and then you put drugs in the mix, and then, in your own state of mind at the time. It could be, you could be on to something there. It could be a real diversion, that it's too powerful to sing.

• 33:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  What's fascinating is the sung parts, the singer is in control, and he's worried about her.

• 34:05Speaker 11

  Right, right.

• 34:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  The spoken parts, the singer is vulnerable, and he's confessing his own, and it's so screwed up. It's like, "I know you lied to me, and I wish you hadn't..."

• 34:14Speaker 11

  Right.

• 34:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  "I wish I didn't know that you lied to me, because I'd rather be in the state of being deceived than know the truth", which is like seventeen convolutions of...

• 34:25Speaker 11

  Neuroticism. Right. Because he's still blaming her most of the lines. Still pointing the finger.

• 34:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  White says you can't run from that kind of emotion, not if you're singing the song properly. And so when he writes songs, he tries to establish some distance between himself and the feelings he's singing about.

• 34:45Speaker 11

  I try to push it into a character's standpoint, rather than it being a self-confession. Confessional for me. Because I think that would be really hard to consistently keep living that moment over and over and over again. I've definitely seen older artists ignoring certain parts of their certain songs in their career because it's probably too close to home about something or other.

• 35:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  But you can't avoid a song's emotional effects all the time. And especially not when you have to read a soliloquy in the middle of it, which is what the "Are you lonesome?" bridge is. A speech parachuted into the heart of the song.

• 35:23Speaker 11

  I had a little flub moment at one point, trying to figure out, whoa, wait a minute. It's a waltz. You know, you have that. So if I'm like...

• 35:37Speaker 11

  I wonder if... Two, three. So one, two, three. One, two, three.

• 35:46Speaker 11

  So your brain kind of wants to go, "I wonder if you're lonesome tonight." That's what your brain wants to do. And you know someone said that the world's a stage and we must each play a part. Then it starts to get...

• 36:01Malcolm Gladwell?

  Oh, it breaks down.

• 36:02Speaker 11

  Yeah. I mean, I can definitely say that this would be a lot easier if someone else was playing guitar and I could just recite that part. Wait, should I recite it while you play the guitar? Yeah, let's do that. Do that. Yeah.

• 36:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  I'm not going to torture you with my rendition of "The Spoken Bridge." Well, maybe later. I'm just saying, until I die, I can say I played with Jack White. And then, because how many opportunities am I gonna get like this? I asked Jack White to help me edit the soliloquy. If one were to rewrite it, I'm thinking that you lose the first three lines. "Fate had me playing in love, you as my sweetheart." Or even, "Act one was when we met." Why don't they just start with act one?

• 36:57Speaker 11

  "Act one was where we met. I loved you at first glance. You read your lines so carefully, never missed a cue." What did I do there?

• 37:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  You said "carefully" instead of "cleverly," which is a beautiful phrase.

• 37:12Speaker 11

  Never missed a cue. Then came act two. "You seemed to change, you acted strange."

• 37:19Malcolm Gladwell?

  What did Jack White do there? The actual lyric is, "You read your lines so cleverly." He said, "You read your lines so carefully." Carefully for cleverly. A man singing one of the songs of his musical idol comes to the emotionally complex center. And what do we hear? A moment of vulnerability. Can he be as clever as Elvis? He's not sure. He must be careful. Parapraxis.

• 37:51Speaker 11

  Sometimes, you know, I love him so much and that I'm afraid to learn more about certain things. Like, you know, when you're so close to it and you've experienced certain things about, you know, nothing in comparison to what he went through, but you're in the same-- we do the same kind of thing. We perform and we go on stages and we make records and all this stuff. I'm from a different time period, but you notice these tiny little moments that are-- when you see something, you're like, "Oh, I know exactly what that's about. I know exactly what that feels like."

• 38:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  There are 10 known live recordings of Elvis performing "Are You Lonesome Tonight", starting in 1961 in a concert at Block Arena in Honolulu, up through the end of Elvis's life in 1977. Alan Elms and Bruce Heller analyzed them all in their essay 12 Ways to Say Lonesome: Assessing Error and Control in the Music of Elvis Presley. Elms and Heller find that Elvis performs the sung portion of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" more or less flawlessly, because the sung portion is the part of the song where the singer is in control. But in the spoken bridge, the narrator is suddenly the one who's been deceived and rejected.

• 39:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  And that's the part Elvis can't get right. Elms and Heller count a total of 109 errors in those 10 live performances of the spoken bridge, 29 of which involve just four lines. "I loved you at first glance," where he confesses the depths of his feelings. "You seemed to change, you acted strange," where he testifies to his betrayal and rejection. "And why I've never known," where he expresses his feelings of anger and victimization. And "with emptiness all around," where he admits to his loneliness.

• 39:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  The most problematic renditions of the bridge are the later ones, which come after the summer of 1972. What happens in a summer of 1972?

• 40:05Speaker 05

  And one day you went in and said, "I'm leaving." There was another man in your life then. He was your karate teacher.

• 40:15Speaker 06

  Right.

• 40:16Speaker 05

  Mike Stone. And you went off then and lived with him.

• 40:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:19Malcolm Gladwell?

  Priscilla Presley, back on the couch with Barbara Walters, America's primetime Freudian.

• 40:25Speaker 05

  It was said that Elvis tried to kill him, or wanted him killed.

• 40:29Speaker 06

  Right.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  Do you believe that?

• 40:31Speaker 06

  I think at that time, yes. He did, he wanted that to happen.

• 40:37Speaker 10

  Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair? A drawer filled with pain, shall I come back? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome? Oh, Lord, Lord. I wonder.

• 41:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  A man who fears betrayal and abandonment is betrayed and abandoned.

• 41:24Speaker 10

  And I had no cause to die.

• 41:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's too much. He's a wreck.

• 41:35Speaker 10

  Sing it, baby. Shall I come back again? Tell me, dear, are you lonesome?

• 41:55Speaker 00

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 42:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  These days, there are more people than ever telling you how to manage your health. And we've all gone down an internet rabbit hole, exploring the latest health trends. Your social media feed is packed with wellness advice, telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez has racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to health influencers, real people, and most importantly, doctors, to separate fact from fiction.

• 43:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The new Petivity Smart Feeder for Cats turns everyday meals into meaningful health insights, helping you identify changes in your cat's habits and be more proactive about their health. My cat, Biggie Smalls, is the most demanding member of our household. He has specific mealtimes, or he lets out a massive howl. And last night, I introduced him to the Petivity Smart Feeder for Cats. It took no time to set up. I downloaded the app, plugged it in,

• 44:01Malcolm Gladwell?

  filled up the feeder with delicious kibble, and watched as my cat entered the digital age. Biggie, look!

• 44:08Speaker 10

  Meow!

• 44:08Malcolm Gladwell?

  All curious at it. It's its first experience with high technology. Tiny, feline mind, blown. Check in on mealtime with a real-time video feed and dispense food on demand even when you're away. In multi-cat households, the Petivity Smart Feeder for Cats uses facial recognition technology to track up to five cats. Visit petivity.com/catfeeder to learn more.

• 44:40Malcolm Gladwell?

  After I left Jack White, I went to see Bobby Braddock, just down the street at the Sony Studios on Nashville's Music Row.

• 44:47Speaker 12

  This was just in.

• 44:51Malcolm Gladwell?

  You may remember Bobby Braddock from season two of Revisionist History. He's the legendary songwriter I called the king of tears. Braddock wanted to introduce me to a good friend of his, a singer-songwriter named Casey Bowles.

• 45:04Speaker 13

  Come on, that's the Church of Christ of Alto.

• 45:08Malcolm Gladwell?

  Thirty-something, long red hair, the kind of person who, if you touch, you expect a little jolt of static.

• 45:16Speaker 13

  It'll work.

• 45:17Speaker 12

  Oh, you want me to sing that song?

• 45:19Speaker 13

  You want me to sing that song?

• 45:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  We were in the biggest of the Sony recording studios on the main floor, in a corner where the piano was.

• 45:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  Casey sang "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" with Bobby on the piano.

• 45:34Speaker 14

  Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?

• 45:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  Then we sat, and they talked about Nashville. They talked about how they both grew up in the Church of Christ, the most strict of Southern fundamentalist denominations. And they talked about Elvis.

• 46:02Speaker 13

  My dad thought he was Elvis, I think. Yeah, he really, he was a Church of Christ songwriter and really wanted to be a Jordanair, badly. And so Ray Walker was one of the Jordanaires, and he tried to emulate him by way of dress and hairstyle. And so I grew up either hearing him say, "Hello, darling, nice to see you," or doing this sort of, you know, is it vaudeville style or just sort of a over-the-top maudlin style, I guess? Is maudlin the way you'd say it? Maudlin?

• 46:35Malcolm Gladwell?

  Then Bobby Braddock started talking about recitations, the spoken part in many older country songs. And he made the same point that Jack White did, that they're much easier if they're set to music, if you could just as easily sing them. Like on one of Braddock's most famous songs, "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

• 46:53Speaker 12

  The recitations, like.

• 46:59Speaker 12

  She came to see him one last time.

• 47:05Speaker 12

  Oh, we all wondered if she would. Yeah, you could sing that. She came to see him one last time.

• 47:13Speaker 12

  Oh, we all wondered if she would. And that works either way. But this is just like, uh, we got this song, let's get a recitation, throw it in there. And Elvis made it work. And I'm thinking just instinctively, just because he was, uh, he was just so good.

• 47:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  Recitations are unusual these days. Braddock hasn't written one since something he did for Toby Keith in the 1990s.

• 47:39Speaker 12

  Last successful recitation song I had was actually, it was, well, actually it was, it was a hip hop thing. I want to talk about me. But that was talking, talking, talking.

• 47:49Speaker 13

  See, Toby Keith, that's what I'm thinking about, yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 12

  But it was, you know, it's all in.

• 47:51Malcolm Gladwell?

  Wait, can you, you, can you, can you play a little slice of that, do you remember?

• 47:56Speaker 13

  I could pretend like I'm Toby Keith.

• 47:57Speaker 12

  I never do that. I never do that. When I do that, always, I always do it with, with a karaoke thing where I get up there and play the thing.

• 48:07Speaker 12

  I want to talk about me, want to talk about I, want to talk about number one. Now, you talk about your work, how your boss is a jerk, you talk about your church in your head. Talk about the trouble you've been having with your mother and your daddy, with your brother and your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-lover, you know.

• 48:25Speaker 13

  But it fits that.

• 48:27Speaker 12

  And then the menstrual, menstrual period line, which everybody said, you can't put that in a song, nobody will ever cut it, you know. And it was one of the biggest songs they ever had. About your medical charts and when you start.

• 48:40Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 12

  Take that out. Nobody recorded. Toby Keith did.

• 48:46Speaker 12

  He's probably the only one who would have, though.

• 48:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  Then I showed them the prize. I brought it in my bag. My copy of The Handbook of Psychobiography, containing the Heller and Elms essay. Hold on, I have my book here. I'll tell you. Oh, that's fascinating.

• 49:03Speaker 13

  Yeah, that is fascinating.

• 49:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  To a pair of Elvis fanatics, it was like I'd unearthed the Dead Sea Scrolls. What's the book? It's a book called Handbook of Psychobiography, and it has an essay on this song. Wow, psychobiography. And, so yeah, so here's, so this guy has gone through, he made a chart of all of the lyrical mistakes that Elvis made in every known live recording.

• 49:29Speaker 13

  What?

• 49:30Speaker 09

  Oh, my gosh.

• 49:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah. These were two songwriters, and I felt they immediately saw themselves in that chart. Do you find yourself making the kind of errors, sometimes even subtle ones, that we've been talking about?

• 49:43Speaker 13

  That's so interesting. I wrote a song about my mother called Somebody Something, and my mother is adorable. And whenever you heard about things going wrong, or like some tumultuous story, it was my dad. And so I finally was like, you know what? Why aren't we the only person in the family that there's nothing I haven't written about? So I was trying to dig dirt on her, and there was nothing. And so I ended up writing this song about her, called Somebody Something, and I cry every time I do it. And there is a line, it says, you know, "She's always been somebody something. She's lived every life but her own."

• 50:18Speaker 13

  And it's gone. I can't remember it right now.

• 50:21Malcolm Gladwell?

  I know that feeling.

• 50:22Speaker 13

  I can't remember it. She's always been somebody something. She's been everything but alone. A daughter, a mother, a la- A daughter, a lover, a wife and a mother. She's lived every life but her own. Yeah, she's always been somebody something. And there's a line that says, you know, she wonders what it might be like to be somebody else. And she wonders...

• 50:49Speaker 13

  What it feels like to be free. But she's always imagined being nobody's nothing and that's something she never want to be. But that line usually is just gone. And a lot of times I'll go, "Hold on," and divert and tell a funny story really quickly. Yeah.

• 51:07Malcolm Gladwell?

  Wait, what's the specific line that's gone is, which one?

• 51:12Speaker 13

  Uh, let's go on again. Um, "She's always been somebody's something, she's been everything but alone. Daughter, lover, a daughter, a lover, a wife and a mother. She's been everything. But alone, yeah. Yeah.

• 51:28Malcolm Gladwell?

  Why is it that long?

• 51:28Speaker 13

  I don't know. I think that, um... I don't know. I think when you've, she's so, uh, when you see somebody give so much of themselves and that's truly the only thing that she will never experience. And I think it's what I've experienced the most of.

• 51:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  A minute before, we were joking about Toby Keith. Now Casey is pensive as she compares her mother's life to her own.

• 51:57Speaker 13

  Not being able to make a relationship work the first 18,000 times out of the gate or, you know, officially the first two and, um, not being a mother and, you know...

• 52:06Speaker 12

  But still, real close to her, right?

• 52:08Speaker 13

  Yeah, love her. She's wonderful.

• 52:10Speaker 12

  Go to church with her, right?

• 52:11Speaker 13

  I do. I sit still because she makes me and I stay awake and it's good.

• 52:17Speaker 12

  Funny, when I was, when I was a kid, if I'd get bored in church and my mother'd reach down and pinch me, you know?

• 52:22Speaker 13

  Oh, I got smacked.

• 52:24Malcolm Gladwell?

  Wait, Casey, can you play that song for us? Or is it going to be too?

• 52:28Speaker 13

  Let's see. Okay. Okay, well, we'll see if this happens.

• 52:47Speaker 13

  She grew up playing cowgirl in a railroad town. Dreaming she'd see... Oh, shoot, hold on. There's a little line by Elvis in this. That's just random. Hold on. Dream and see she Hollywood. I'm going to do it again.

• 53:17Speaker 14

  What did I just say? Sorry, I'm thinking about mom. She grew up playing cowgirl. She grew up playing cowgirl in a railroad town. Dreaming she'd see Hollywood someday. She knew some distant Friday night with a cigarette to hold just right. Fate would come and carry her away. As far as she could see from there, those were just the f--ing facts. That's not right. Hold one second.

• 54:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  My first reaction to Casey's failure of memory was to be embarrassed for her, worried that she had lost control. That's the way we're trained to think. Just listen to the words I've just used. Failure. Embarrassed. Worried. In one way or another, that's what this season of revisionist history has been about. About the ways we judge each other for our mistakes and choices. The easiest thing in the world is to look at those mistakes and condemn. The much harder thing is to look at those mistakes and understand.

• 54:41Speaker 14

  She married in December, maybe February, in a dress her mama made. She looked all grown up, standing there like that. Had a honeymoon in Memphis town. Yeah, she looked for Elvis all around. Made love in the Greyhound, coming back.

• 55:24Malcolm Gladwell?

  Parapraxis is not failure. When the performer slips, the audience is not cheated. It's the opposite. Parapraxis is a gift. I presented myself as interested in this story. But now you know that this subject doesn't just interest me, it worries me. Losing control is my great anxiety. When Jack White said "carefully" instead of "cleverly", it was a hint that playing Elvis wasn't a trivial matter for him. It was a sacred act. Carefully, full of care. And Elvis, after the loss of Priscilla,

• 56:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  sang a song he'd sung a thousand times, only now in a way that gave the audience a window on his pain. Mistakes reveal our vulnerabilities. They are the way the world understands us, the way performers make their performances real. So Bobby Braddock and I sat there, listening to Casey sing. Tears in her eyes, fumbling to remember the lyrics of a song about her mother. Fumbling not because her mother didn't matter to her, but because she did.

• 57:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  ...

• 57:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  God, it's beautiful. Why are you covering your mouth?

• 57:37Speaker 13

  I'm just, it's just weird.

• 57:41Speaker 13

  Because I've never, it's just weird when you're thinking about what it is. Like, I just thought, oh, bad memory, too many songs, old, too many songs in there. But at any point in time, I could pull out

• 57:54Speaker 13

  a rap from New Edition from 1982. Like, why is that in there? And something that you wrote is not in there. That is so weird.

• 58:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's not weird. A lesser person would have sung it perfectly.

• 58:26Malcolm Gladwell?

  Thank you for listening to season three of Revisionist History. And if you liked this episode, you'll enjoy my new series launching later this year. It's called Broken Record, and you can subscribe right now on Apple Podcasts. Revisionist History is a Panoply production. The senior producer is Mia Labelle with Jacob Smith and Camille Baptista. Our editor is Julia Barton. Flan Williams is our engineer. Fact checking by Beth Johnson. Original music by Luis Guerra. Special thanks to Kim Green and Hal Humphreys of Storyboard EMP in Nashville. And here in New York, thanks to Jason Gambrell, Evan Viola, Rachel Strom, Nicole Bunces,

• 59:08Malcolm Gladwell?

  Kate Mescal, Kristin Meinzner, Carly Migliore, Andy Bowers, and of course, El Jefe, Jacob Weisberg. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

• 59:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  Okay.

• 59:43Malcolm Gladwell?

  So it would be, "I wonder if you're lonesome tonight."

• 59:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  You know, someone said that the world's a stage and each must play a part.

• 59:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  Fate had me playing in love, you as my sweetheart.

• 1:00:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  Act one was when we met. I loved you at first glance. You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue.

• 1:00:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  Then came act two.

• 1:00:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  You seemed to change and you acted strange. And why, I'll never know.

• 1:00:26Malcolm Gladwell?

  Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. And I had no cause to doubt you. But I'd rather go on hearing your lies than go on living without you.

• 1:00:39Malcolm Gladwell?

  Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there with emptiness all around.

• 1:00:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  And if you won't come back to me, then make them bring the curtain down. How are you doing?

• 1:00:54Speaker 10

  Nice.

• 1:00:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  Very good. I wasn't, I'm not very musical. No, it's very good.

• 1:00:58Speaker 10

  It's good.

• 1:01:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  For I don't know how long, maybe 12, 13 years, I've worn a Whoop band on my wrist. I started doing it because I met the founder of Whoop at a conference. He heard that I was a runner and he said, "Oh, you'll love this. It's perfect for athletes." And he was right. I've worn one ever since. Every time I work out, I see how hard I worked, how long I need to recover. I wake up in the morning and I get a complete picture of how my sleep went, which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night and the kinds of things that lead to a good night. It's sleek, long-lasting battery. And now with AI looking at all my numbers and coaching me. Whoop is a winner. New members can try Whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing

• 1:01:46Malcolm Gladwell?

  to a membership. That's whoop.com for your free month of Whoop.

• 1:01:51Speaker 15

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help. Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans. Develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule. So you can spend less energy sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at chatgpt.com.

• 1:02:19Speaker 16

  This is Colin Coward from the Colin Coward Podcast. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability. All starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or a half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. For a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.