Music Appreciation With the Man Who Stopped Led Zeppelin in Their Tracks

Elvis’s version was in fact a cover of Arthur Gunter’s, from the year before. The Bonzo Dog Band did a great imitation of Elvis’s “slapjack” echo in “The Canyons of Your Mind”. Seek it out. Listen to it, raptly!

While we’re on the subject of the occasional sneaky ambiguity of the giants of rock, we must of course first consider John Lennon’s quoting the last verse of Elvis’s “Baby Let’s Play House” — “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than be with another man” — in Rubber Soul’s “Run for Your Life”. Take a hard look at it. Is the singer asserting that his girlfriend’s two choices are (1) “be”-ing with another man, and (2) death?

Are you taking a really hard look? If so, do you not see it’s possible that her two choices are: (1) death, and (2) the singer expressing his presumably heretofore-repressed bisexuality?

According to Albert Goldman, who wrote biographies of both giants, Lennon was secretly as gay as a parade. At the times of the publications of his books, many wanted to tar and feather Goldman, but I think his revelation that the earlier-to-emerge of the two called his procreative member “Little Elvis”, as I have called my own ever since skimming the book, may be the most potent get-out-of-jail-free card in the long, ugly history of rock biographizing.

Which bring us to “Lola”, in which the character Mr. Ray Davies is playing in the song asserts, “I know what I am. I’m a man, and I’m glad, and so is Lola.” Ambiguity a-go-go! It’s been universally inferred for 56 years now that he’s saying Lola is a man, but I’ve always enjoyed believing he wasn’t resolving that mystery, and was saying that Lola’s glad. Tie up your prejudices in an old kit bag and take a good hard look in 2026. Tell me I’m obviously wrong. I dare you.

I double-dare you, as we used to say on the mean streets of Playa del Rey.

On, then, Marty Robbins’ “El Paso”, which I used to enjoy performing at karaoke because the big glissando in the middle eight virtually demands histrionics. I have since come to believe that “El Paso” might be the most bogus song ever to be a new decade’s first No. 1, and don’t wish to hear from those who believe that a new decade begins on the first day of the 1-Year, as, in this case, on January 1, 1961, and not 1960.

Felina is not an Hispanic girl’s name. It’s a Mexican-sounding name that Marty made up. It’s a nice name for a cat, but not for an evil-eyed temptress. As though Maria, among many others, wouldn’t have worked perfectly. But oh, no, Maria would have been sort of corny.

Too corny for the songwriter who has whatever-her-name-is dancing at…Rosa’s Cantina? Was Maria’s Tacqueria taken?

If her very black eyes are wicked and evil (there’s such a difference, Marty?), how is it that Felina’s still got her cherry?

Homoerotic much, Marty? His narrator actually seems a lot more taken with the stranger he finds sharing a drink with not-very-virginal-sounding Felina. Wild. Dashing and daring. Handsome. Did you shoot him for asking Felina for a sip of her piña colada, Mart — and remember you’re under oath — or because a little voice inside was saying, “Do it, Mart! You know you want to! Seduce him! Let that long-suppressed part of yourself fly free at last!”

I challenged his right to the love of this maiden. Jesus H. Christ, Mart. He’s having a sip of her drink. It isn’t as though they’ve gone shopping for baby furniture.

At the end, when our lovelorn murderer returns to El Paso because he’ll explode if he joneses any harder for Felina, she give him a kiss on the cheek and then holds him in her arms as he dies. Wow, some reward. You’d think she might have at the very least lifted her blouse and let him see her no-doubt-spectacular breasts.