Always On My Mind

How Elvis and those who followed him kept a universal theme alive

Elvis Presley was the embodiment of rock ‘n’ roll. In an era where Oasis have become ticket touts and Coldplay are advertising DHL, the original King feels like the source from which other artists were eventually distilled, dilutions of his natural essence. Sure, we might get the odd performer or band that provide an echo of that original uh-huh-huh but its a repeated trick.

Isn’t it?

My first awareness of Elvis Presley was in watching the early 1990s sitcom in space, Red Dwarf. In an episode called Meltdown, Elvis is resurrected as a waxwork and is on the side of the goodies as he battles against some of history’s most evil perpetrators, such as Hitler, Al Capone and James Last. It’s a fun episode and although Elvis ends up as a pool of melted wax, so do all the other goodies and baddies. It’s a waxbath.

Seeking out some Elvis music, I was eventually dazzled by some of the old classics, my favourites being songs such as Way Down (which I performed heroically* at karaoke at the age of 24), Suspicious Minds and Always On My Mind, a cover of a Brenda Lee song – she’s the one who sings Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.

*drunkenly

Always On My Mind is a stone-cold corker when Elvis sings it and coupled with old footage of him, the song spoke to me then and speaks to me now not only about the theme of the song – regretting not being able to express love and taking a lover for granted – but how we as a public kind of did the same with Elvis Presley, and how we also do the same with loads of other talented artists who went too soon.

Here’s Elvis’ version:

It was a long time later that I encountered the song again. By this point, I’d listened to a lot of Elvis, and the jokes about him stuffing bread rolls in his pockets in Red Dwarf no longer made me laugh but inspired sadness. Here was a man who in his youth had been so malnourished that he went through bins, or just went hungry. He was starving all the time and naturally when he made it big, his vice was the compensation of that childhood trauma.

This is often the way, I have since reasoned.

I have met many poor people - and been poor - and they value the material value of money hugely in later life. Others who had no father around seek male guidance. Those who had the perfect family support system and a mum and dad who were always around often seek to fill in some other gap in their childhood once they become an adult.

Released in late 1987, I completely missed the Pet Shop Boys version of Always On My Mind when it came out. In my defence, I was eight and highly focused on buying a can of Tab Clear, watching Bullseye and dealing with the half-penny going into liquidation.

So, many years after hearing Elvis’ - in my opinion - definitive version of the song, this radical alteration of the music and delivery of the lyrics could well have turned me right off. My opinion was that to cover a great song was a waste. You cannot improve the original, so why not put that energy into writing a new song? John Barry once said the same about Robbie Williams using his score from You Only Live Twice in the hit song Millennium. Fine, he said, it’s nice to get the royalties. But he didn’t understand why they didn’t just write their own iconic tune.

The Pet Shop Boys completely ruined my firm belief in this stance when they released their cover of Always On My Mind, because it might be the best cover song of all time. It’s a weird-ass video to boot, featuring Joss Ackland, the main baddie from Lethal Weapon 2, which I also love. Take a look:

This, of course, I reasoned, ended all interest in the song other than to listen to it on repeat by both artists forever. This I did through my 30s and into my 40s until last year when Spotify recommended that I listen to Elvis Song by an artist I’d never heard of called Maisie Peters. I figured she was about 12 or something and that this would be a terrible recommendation; I was a big Elvis fan and whatever she had to say about the guy was not going to appeal to me, a 40-year-old man.

Then I heard the song.

Elvis Song references Always On My Mind but expands on the theme of regretting being thoughtless of someone in a relationship – be it friend, lover, sibling, parent, it could be anyone – and tells the story of someone looking back at all the moments of bitter regret they harbour, in their mind, all enveloped in one Elvis-inspired memory.

To me, it is yet more evidence that the theme in the original song is never going to be fully explored and perhaps each new interpretation of either the theme, the words or the tune reach out to new people. It makes me love each version all the more and I’d probably even welcome any future interpretations of the song.

Which means this is probably as good as it’s going to get.