100 Songs that came out in 1989 that mention Elvis Presley

14. Ray Stevens - 'I Saw Elvis in a UFO'

(^^ This what being forced to drive through Branson everytime I came and went from college to home did to me.)

15. Robyn Hitchcock, "Queen Elvis"

Does Memphis, Egypt count?
http://image.listen.com/img/170x170/0/6/6/2/412660_170x170.jpg

16-36: every song on The King & Eye
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WH8S862PL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

YES dad a.

I think I have the makings of an EMP paper or Believer article in here.

Dread Zeppelin debuted in '90 didn't they? Gotta count that.

And hey, on the motion picture front, "Wild At Heart", "Mystery Train", "Pink Cadillac", "Cry-Baby" and who-knows-what else were all released in 1989-90! What was going on?

37.) "Smokin' Banana Peels" - Dead Milkmen ('88)

this thread might be helpful to cross reference:
songs that reference both Jesus and Elvis

fallout from 10-year anniversary of his death?

xxpost

'91 would get you hal ketchum's small town saturday night

Also Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis"

What was going on?

-10 year nostalgia cycle after his death in 1977
-peak of Elvis "sightings" and tabloid journalism

Didn't U2 record Rattle and Hum (1988) at Sun Studios?

And the b-side to "Angel of Harlem" is "A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel."

(Though it doesn't mention Elvis by name.)

I think I have the makings of an EMP paper or Believer article in here.

If you are serious about this, you should check out this book, which is academic but very readable and engaging.

Oooh! Awesome! Thanks jaymc!

No one rip off my idea, k?

official biterpedia of new jack east coast ilxors jacking whiney's EMP paper proposal

also check late 80s bands Elvis Hitler (who definitely referenced Presley) and Velvet Elvis (who I never heard)

Re: tabloid Elvis sightings - haha yep!

I remember Bloom County had a running gag around this time with an aged, fatter Elvis making himself known to a few blessed individuals.

Oh yeah, even Weird Al weighed in!

38. Weird Al Yankovic - "Velvet Elvis"

and it sounded like the Police.

growing up in the 80s and early 90s it definitely felt like there was a slow fade of the national obsession with Elvis dying down...maybe it was the boomers taking over the pop culture canon and shifting the focus further toward the Beatles?

Adrenalin OD had an album called 'Cruising With Elvis In Bigfoot's UFO' that came out around 1988, no way I can remember any lyrics off that thing though.

39. Pop Will Eat Itself - 'Not Now James, We're Busy' 1989

"They're all in this, they're doing it to James
Like they did it to Elvis"

Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback

What was going on?

Post-Reagan casting about for a father figure?
Pre-Cobain casting about for a rebellion icon?

I remember there was LOTS of money to be made of Elvis kitsch: license plates, fridge magnets, fake drivers license, velvet paintings, etc.

wonder stuff - never loved elvis

I saw this movie in the theater in 1988:

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/movieposters/HEARTBREAK%20HOTEL%20us%201%20sheet.JPG

I went to Graceland for the first time in 1989.

It was also when Elvis' music started making its first real impact in CD format. I remember this 2xCD set (which I still have) being a big deal when it came out in 1990:

http://www.amazon.com/Top-Ten-Hits-Elvis-Presley/dp/B000002WFX

Which culminated w/ the first 50s box in 1992.

Actually I guess that set is from just a couple of years earlier, but Elvis on CD was a big deal during those few years.

That NME Last Temptation of Elvis comp too ... Kind of surprising that this happened across the whole mainstream/undergound continuum.

The Ex, "Elvis & I," off Dead Fish, 1990.

Are there even 100 songs that mention elvis in 1989v

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers f/ Axl Rose "Heartbreak Hotel"

Do covers count?

"No fish can swim. Until The King is born! Until The King is born! In Tupelo! Tupelo-o-o! Til The King is born in Tupelo!

Nick Cave hip in before it got cool in '85.

the "Mystery Train" soundtrack should also count for this

it doesn’t mention elvis but “wicked game” came out in 1989...

Man, I still want to write this book

"Wicked Game" is in Wild at Heart -- written and shot in '89 with many Elvis references.

First three posts itt give me the giggles

I think I have the makings of an EMP paper or Believer article in here.

If you are serious about this, you should check out this book, which is academic but very readable and engaging.

― total mormon cockblock extravaganza (jaymc), Friday, December 12, 2008

Even more obvious, Marcus's Dead Elvis, which came out in '91. Also very readable and engaging, far less abstruse than some of his others.

haulofrecords
8 years ago
I am Skid Roper and Mojo Nixon has NEVER lived in Escondido. In the '80s he lived in the North Park section of San Diego and now he lives in Coronado, California. The phone # with the 619 area code was to machine at his San Diego house. I just wanted to clear up some mis-information

El Vez's first EP didn't come out til 91, dang

heh was just the other day thinking about the jack Womack novel Elvissey, which I now see came out in 1993

the NME 'last temptation of Elvis' comp came out in 1990 though

at the time I felt as though this pop cultural moment had a definitive death knell in 'Elvis ate America' by The Passengers (1995) - which felt lame and dated the second it came out IMO

1993 would get you Hobart paving by St Etienne, which would be nice

but I respect the purity of the OP

Everything but the Girl - The Night I Heard Caruso Sing (1988)

and I've never heard this album, but:

https://i.imgur.com/MIIXw4F.jpg

The King & Eye is an album by the American avant-garde band The Residents, released in 1989. It consists of a series of Elvis Presley songs strung together with a narration exploring what motivated him throughout his career. Most of the album showed up in the Cube-E tour. This album was the last full-length album The Residents released before entering their "Multimedia Era."

Through the perspective of a father telling his children fables about a long dead king and his songs, and a poignant string of narrative interludes - "The Baby King" - the work hints at a darker side of the Elvis mystique and questions the spiritual nature of his reign. The album "incisively portrays Elvis's life and work as a misguided abandonment of innocence in favor of a sad yet comedic Oedipal journey," writes Jim Green.

^damn, already mentioned upthread

Frank Zappa - Elvis Has Just Left the Building (1988)