Elvis Presley: Speedway

ELVIS PRESLEY: SPEEDWAY (1968)

1) Speedway; 2) There Ainʼt Nothing Like A Song; 3) Your Time Hasnʼt Come Yet Baby; 4) Who Are You; 5) Heʼs Your Uncle Not Your Dad; 6) Let Yourself Go; 7) Your Groovy Self; 8) Five Sleepy Heads; 9) Western Union; 10) Mine; 11) Goinʼ Home; 12) Suppose.

General verdict: Just another typical later-period Elvis soundtrack — nothing to indicate that it would be his last, though if they had the good sense to involve Lee Hazlewood a bit more, I might even have regretted that.

Although Elvis starred in at least six more movies after Clambake, Speedway would be the only one of these and, consequently, the very last full-fledged Elvis soundtrack LP accompanying a feature film (rather than a TV show or concert documentary). Doubtlessly, this had to do with plummeting sales — with its miserable profits, the album became the final nail in the coffin of the Elvis soundtrack album. Yet, once again, in the overall context of Elvisʼ Sixties output, it is nowhere near as boring and irrelevant as the 1965–66 stretch of embarrassments. Once again, we are dealing here with a bizarre mixed bag — some nicely acceptable goodies going hand-in-hand with true Kings of Corn.

The big deal about Speedway, the movie, was that it featured Nancy Sinatra as Elvisʼ co-star; and while it would be unfair to all the truly great ladies of the Sixties to regard Nancy Sinatra as a top tier artist for the decade, she had at least two things going for her — a touch of tough, edgy class and collaboration with Lee Hazlewood. Both of these things work wonders for us with the inclusion into the soundtrack of one song that has absolutely nothing to do with Elvis — the Hazlewood-written slow «country cabaret» tune ʽYour Groovy Selfʼ, delivered by Nancy in her fairly trademark «half-empowered, half-stoned» hazy drawl, oozing sardonic mid-Sixties cool in a way that would be totally unthinkable for Elvis himself.

She does cross paths with Elvis on the Joy Byers-written ʽThere Ainʼt Nothing Like A Songʼ, though «written» is a bit too strong — most of the time, Byers takes old classics and tweaks them in slight ways, this one being no exception: it is really just an updated, overproduced take on ʽKing Creoleʼ, but at least the tempo is fast, the drums are crashing, the guitar solo is tight, and Nancyʼs responses to the Kingʼs calls in the final verse add a touch of diversity; I could never say, though, that there is anything here even remotely recalling the kind of chemistry that Elvis had with Ann-Margret. Too bad — with a bit more work, we could have gleefully enjoyed a pair of hip boots walking all over the Kingʼs hillbilly chauvinist persona, but perhaps the song- and screenwriters were taking conscious effort at this point so as not to humiliate their star beyond reasonable limits.

They did a decent enough job on the title track, another Vegas-rocker partially redeemed by some nice boogie piano and a semi-inspired vocal workout; ʽYour Time Hasnʼt Come Yet Babyʼ, a pleasantly upbeat acoustic ballad written by team newcomer Joel Hirschhorn in a style vaguely reminiscent of Elvisʼ late Fifties material like; and ʽLet Yourself Goʼ, another Joy Byers «composition» which is really just a Vegas-ization of Willie Dixonʼs ʽLittle Babyʼ but thatʼs alright, weʼll take it for lack of anything better.

On the downside, Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne offer another fine, totally justified contribution for Elvisʼ Greatest Shit — that one song with the unforgettable title ʽHeʼs Your Uncle, Not Your Dadʼ. Like any respectable, well-meaning, law-abiding citizen of this planet, I did not doubt for a second that this was going to be a song about good old incest before putting it on — so imagine my disappointment when it turned out that the «uncle» in question was Uncle Sam, and that the song itself was an «ironic» parody on a patriotic military march. Honestly, what with the Kingʼs total inability to carry off anything ironic, sarcastic, or plain humorous, Iʼd probably have preferred the song to be a sincere patriotic march — but then again, perhaps we could do without patriotic marching altogether? (It doesnʼt help much if you actually watch the choreography in the movie, either — the most pitiful thing in the world is trying to look funny without having the first idea of how to achieve a properly comedic effect).

Once again, the total number of new songs (seven) was barely enough to fill up one side of the LP, so they had to quickly scrape together some leftovers — unfortunately, three of them came from the rotten factory of Bennett and Tepper, including ʽWestern Unionʼ from 1963 (yet another wretched attempt to recreate the success of ʽReturn To Senderʼ, almost note-for-note) and the utterly generic lullaby ʽFive Sleepy Headsʼ. Only Joy Byersʼ ʽGoinʼ Homeʼ is worthy of a bit of attention — I cannot identify the exact folk / country source from which she ripped off that one (probably something by Johnny Cash), but at least the King sounds a bit more authentic and inspired on this one. Still, with even the bonus tracks now incapable to bring up the value of the finished product, it is easy to see why Speedway marked the long-awaited end of Elvisʼ sound­track business: even the trusty corporate mafia were getting tired hacking out new material for the movies. For most of his subsequent movies, they would contribute 2–3 new songs on average, and it was fairly clear that it no longer truly made any difference if Elvis were to sing anything in the movie or not. In fact, itʼs ridiculous that the machine still kept rolling on, by inertia, for at least half a year after the comeback special. But hey, at least we got to see the man getting it on with Mary Tyler Moore in Change Of Habit.