The Meat Puppets song inspired by Elvis’ gospel period
Most established artists will have gone on to inspire other artists in some way, shape or form. A band that only has one album out and has been making music for a couple of years, regardless of how infantile that career is compared to music as a whole, will have influenced musicians who are just learning to play. As such, when you go far enough to musicians like Elvis, who formed the foundation of what we now know as mainstream music, it’s hard to find any band that hasn’t been inspired in some way by them.
The issue is that Elvis was making music so long ago, and so much music has happened since he was in the mainstream that his influence is often indirect instead of direct. Essentially, most bands are influenced by him because he is embedded into the foundation of rock and roll, but very few modern artists will cite him as an influence because they are too high up on the current musical structure to properly appreciate the foundation other than acknowledging it’s there.
Artists like Elvis are to music what gravity is to football players. When someone scores a goal, they thank the player who passed the ball to them, management for organising play that way and fans for sticking by them. The football player is also thankful for gravity as without it, the ball wouldn’t travel, wouldn’t have landed how it did, and the rest of the players wouldn’t be there in the first place, but despite being crucial, gravity rarely gets a mention.
As such, it’s always interesting to hear when artists cite Elvis as being a significant influence in some of the music they have gone on to make. In this instance, The Meat Puppets lead singer and songwriter, Curt Kirkwood, says that some of Elvis’s gospel music drove the initial version of their song ‘Backwater’.
The track was one of the leading songs from the band’s Too High To Die album, a parody of The Ramones, Too Tough to Die. While the finished version is quicker and more energetic, Kirkwood confirms that the original was much more slowed down and considered.
“I always liked Elvis’ gospel albums,” he said, “and I like gospel in general. Those are the Elvis albums I grew up on, because my grandmother had them. Kept some of the first stuff. So I thought it would be cool to write a gospel, or try to. So that’s what that was. It wasn’t really supposed to be religious, like gospel, but it was real slow. And I pretty much started out with the organ, the demo was based mostly around the organ. And it was slower. It was hymnal slow.”
Elvis’s influence, in general, can often be overlooked, his gospel side in particular, given he is such a prolific voice in rock n roll. It’s interesting to hear how much his early work inspired bands such as The Meat Puppets while composing song structure and rhythm.
