Lay for the Day 20th December

When Elvis Presley received his draft notice on this day in 1957, he must have realised that things were never going to be the same again. I don’t feel like John Lennon did, that “Elvis died when he went in the Army”. Much of his best music was made in the Sixties – the Elvis Is Back! sessions of 1960, How Great Thou Art in 1966, the Memphis recordings of 1969. But as a hero, he put his imprint on the world in those two and a half years between January 1956, when he recorded ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, and June 1958 when he sang as a valediction, half buffoon and half Byron, ‘(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such As I’.

A song from Rockingham Street:

The King Comes Out Tonight

I fell asleep in Brighton
On a rainy Sunday evening.
I’d run into the station
To see the last train leaving.
I curled up in my parka
And watched the slow waves gleaming
And there I finally fell asleep,
And there I fell to dreaming.

I dreamed that I was walking
Beneath a honey-coloured moon.
The southern night was scented,
I heard the alligators croon.
I heard the night owl whistle
Beneath the twisted trees.
Everything was still and warm
And filled me with unease.

I heard the purring whine
As a long black limousine
That passed me on the highway
Pulled up silent and serene.
A dozen men climbed slowly out,
Stood waiting in a ring.
They raised their heads, they gave a shout,
And then I saw the King.

There was a supernatural light,
Afigure dressed in gold and white.
He made the Mississippi darkness bright,
Then a tall man on my right
Said, “What a rare and precious sight.
The King comes out tonight.
He only comes out at night…”

But mama, thatÕs all right,
Mama, thatÕs all right.
The King comes out tonight,
He only comes out at night.
Well,mama, thatÕs all right,
Mama, thatÕs all right.

Words and music by The Children

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