Elvis Presley: "Return to Sender"

November 5, 1962 (2 weeks)

It was still about six years away from happening but the idea of Elvis making a comeback was already being floated around in 1962. Though the hits kept on coming, it had become clear that this wasn't the same King from 1957. Seriously, did no one figure he'd be different when he was released from the army? One look at him gallivanting on stage with Frank Sinatra at his Welcome Home show should have confirmed it: hillbilly wildcat Elvis was gone and mainstream, fit-for-the-establishment Elvis had taken his place.

And you know something? Presley seemed to be making the best of it. His output had been admittedly erratic but he hadn't exactly been consistently great ever since the peak of '56. His return from Germany in 1960 coincided with opening himself up to a variety of style that he other wise wouldn't have dabbled in. That said, what seemed to stymie his development in the early sixties, however, was his inability or unwillingness to pick a lane. Middle-of-the-road lounge music seemed to be where he was heading but the pull of old school rock 'n' roll was still there and his heart seemed to be in gospel.

Hints of a growing musical maturity kept being blocked by a combination of pressure to remain a teen idol and the increasingly lightweight roles he was being given in Hollywood. The last time Elvis topped the Canadian charts it was with the average "Good Luck Charm" but flip side "Anything That's Part of You" indicated there were hidden depths. Then he put out follow-ups "She's Not You" and "King of the Whole Wide World" which were as trite and/or moronic as ever. Has there ever been an artist whose progress could be halted on a dime by outside influences as readily as Elvis Presley?

"Return to Sender" is a partial return to form. Only partial because it's pretty idiotic but The King sounds like he's having a good time and not simply going through the motions so that's a definite plus. The song is charming enough even if it overplays its postal delivery metaphor hand. Yet, it remains an unconvincing stab at a rock 'n' roll comeback. It had been just a year since "Little Sister" and "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame" which showed The King in effortless mid-fifties form; in this case, it's not so much that he's struggling with a genre that he once defined and more that he's doing a competent pop song that's trying to act like vintage Elvis when it's patently clear that it's not up to the task. For his part, Presley probably was up to it but this is a man who couldn't write on his own and wasn't always serviced with the best outside material.

"Return to Sender" also happened to be Elvis' first single A side in Canada since "Hard Headed Woman" all the way back in the middle of 1958. I don't know why so many of his flip sides (many of whom varied in quality) were given such prominence or indeed why the practice was stopped here but it does signal that the double A side would slowly begin to fade from the charts. Only one would get to number one in 1963 before The Beatles briefly brought it back during their conquest of the Top 40 in the early part of '64 but that would be only a few months away from the changeover to the RPM chart where opposing sides of the same single were able to chart separately.

Score: 6

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Can Con

I've been trying to ignore him but, what the hell, Paul Anka's still having hits so why not give an update. The Latin rhythms of "Eso Beso (That Kiss!)" suit his overconfident voice. In fact, Anka has always been at his best when he sounds like he's vaguely annoyed. Catchy, good fun and it probably deserved a bit better than only getting to number eleven. A pleasant surprise given my usual antipathy towards Ottawa's favourite son — and a good deal better than Gord Lightfoot's latest effort, the lame country-gospel "It's Too Late, He Wins". By the seventies, the idea of preferring Paul Anka over Gordon Lightfoot would be laughable; a decade earlier and Canada's original lounge lizard wins easily.