Elvis Presley: It Happened At The World's Fair

ELVIS PRESLEY: IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLDʼS FAIR (1963)

1) Beyond The Bend; 2) Relax; 3) Take Me To The Fair; 4) They Remind Me Too Much Of You; 5) One Broken Heart; 6) Iʼm Falling In Love Tonight; 7) Cotton Candy; 8) A World Of Our Own; 9) How Would You Like To Be; 10) Happy Ending.

General verdict: Derivative, cutesy, boring, and who the heck loves happy endings?

At least weʼre not in Hawaii any more, though, honestly, writing a movie script that would somehow tie together Elvis, Elvisʼ girls, and the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle was hardly that much more of a noble enterprise than writing yet another script about golden beaches, luaus, and mama shrimps. In the context of Elvisʼ musical career, though, the only question that may be asked is — does this particular soundtrack have at least one song of the caliber of ʽReturn To Senderʼ or ʽCanʼt Help Falling In Loveʼ? Just one, one single, teeny-weeny bit of a song like that? We know we cannot be arrogant enough to hope for two... but one? maybe?..

All eyes turn first and foremost to Otis Blackwell, who wrote ʽReturn To Senderʼ and who returns to contribute ʽOne Broken Heartʼ — and it is a major disappointment in comparison, a fairly straightforward R&B number with nothing but a simple and generic guitar pattern to drive it. Not bad or anything, but no interesting hooks or unique features, and the public reacted accordingly, making the single miss the Top 10. (Perhaps not coincidentally, this would be one of the last songs Otis would write for Elvis). And there you go — if you canʼt even count on Otis this time around, who else could you count on?

The return to slightly less exotic American soil in the movies is musically paralleled by the relative lack of exotic embarrassments — but the actual result is that this soundtrack is very even, very derivative, and ultimately just very dull. As usual, it is not so much the fault of Elvis himself as the fact that all those corporate songwriters were meticulously pumping out the same formulae. For instance, the good old reliable pair of Tipper and Bennett pump out ʽRelaxʼ, an inferior clone of ʽFeverʼ if there ever was one; and Ben Raleigh contributes ʽHow Would You Like To Beʼ, a song that shamelessly pilfers the hook of ʽGood Luck Charmʼ but transforms the song into a chiming nursery lullaby — granted, in the movie he does sing it to a kid, but in the context of the album the implication is that in six years time, Elvisʼ typical audience has «progressed» from 15-year olds to 5-year olds, and this is... sad.

Actually, I have to take that back, because, surprise surprise, arguably the best song on the entire album is ʽCotton Candy Landʼ, a direct lullaby written by Ruth Bachelor and Bob Roberts (the same pair who wrote the sappy ʽBecause Of Loveʼ) that has the benefit of containing subtle gospel overtones — the way Elvis delivers the opening line "sandmanʼs cominʼ, yes heʼs cominʼ", youʼd think he was singing about Jesus, not sandman. There are also some exquisite guitar and piano flourishes giving the song a mystical, even ominous flair — not sure if Ruth and Bob intended it to be that way, but this teensy-weensy touch of creepiness is precisely what it takes to make my ears perk up a bit. Unfortunately, this was probably an accident, because nothing else on the record contains any such signs of ambiguity.

The biggest advantage of the album is how mercifully short it is — in fact, it is curious to note that five out of ten songs do not even manage to hit the two-minute mark. It is almost as if they were intentionally shortening them out so that Elvis could slice through them as quickly as possible, then forget about them for eternity. (A notable exception is ʽHow Would You Like To Beʼ, extended so that it can include a playful instrumental section and a cutesy rockʼnʼroll coda, but youʼd have to watch Elvis playing with little girl Vicky Tiu in the movie to get what it is all about). At least Girls! Girls! Girls! had a tiny bit of that old rambunctious spirit manifesting itself every once in a while; It Happened At The Worldʼs Fair has instead the spirit of a toddler, and a fairly flat and boring toddler at that. Then again, one might find it so completely purged of any elements of accursed machismo that it might come across as an unexpected delight to anybody who... oh wait, no, I forgot that ʽRelaxʼ at least ("letʼs uncork the stopper, come to papa") is definitely not for toddlers. Damn, there goes the family entertainment value all to hell.