The Elvis Presley song George Harrison called “dumb”
He may have been known as ‘The Quiet One’, but like his bandmates in The Beatles, George Harrison wasn’t afraid to make his opinions known. Possessing a darkly dry sense of humour, several of the late guitarist’s hot takes remain among the funniest of the classic rock period and offer insight into his complex inner workings, which do away with the reserved caricature he is often depicted as.
Famously, Harrison hated Merseybeat outfit The Hollies’ rendition of his song ‘If I Needed Someone’. In a 1965 interview, the year both versions of the track came out, he decried The Hollies’ interpretation as “rubbish” and maintained that they “spoilt it”. The Beatle would then criticise the general sound of the Graham Nash-led band’s records, claiming they sounded like session men who didn’t know each other.
Harrison could also be as critical of those who inspired him to take up music as a profession. One of these was ‘The King of Rock and Roll’ himself, Elvis Presley. Notably, all of The Beatles were galvanised by his swaggering rock ‘n’ roll when growing up. Yet, after they met their hero, their opinion of him would change, as his music and performances had waned over the years, with him also representing something of a spiritual antithesis to the ‘Fab Four’.
The Beatles were such big fans of Presley in their younger years that they would cover several songs of his, including his 1957 cover of ‘That’s When Your Heartaches Begin’. However, even in those early days when they still revered the Tupelo native, Harrison started to realise that perhaps he wasn’t all he was cracked up to be an artist and described one part of the track as particularly “dumb”. This comment also points to the visionary nature of the Liverpool band, which would see them break from musical tradition later in the decade and make history.
“Sometimes we learnt songs and did them once or twice and then gave them up: like Paul at the Aintree Institute singing ‘That’s When Your Heartaches Begin,’ the Elvis record where he talks in the middle,” Harrison said of the track in The Beatles Anthology. “Have you ever heard such a dumb line? — ‘Love is a thing that we never can share.'”
When speaking to Creem Magazine, Harrison would outline his disappointment at what Presley had become by recalling going to watch him at Madison Square Garden. After stating how immaculate the veteran musician looked, he said: “I wanted to say to him, ‘Why don’t you just come out in your jeans and your black shirt–get rid of all them horrible women singers in your band, all them horrible trumpet players and just have James Burton and the drummer and the bass player and the piano player? Just come out and do ‘That’s All Right, Mama.'”
Listen to ‘That’s Where Your Heartache Begins’ below.
