Elvis Presley: "(You're the) Devil in Disguise"

July 22, 1963 (2 weeks)

On June 29, 1963, a newly famous John Lennon was a guest on the popular UK music-themed panel show Juke Box Jury. The format was simple: a quartet of relatively famous people would sit down and evaluate some of that week's new releases. Panelists who liked a particular single would proclaim it a 'Hit' while those they didn't care for would be deemed a 'Miss'. Apart from getting a good look at the leader of the hottest new group in Britain, JBJ viewers discovered what a great big curmudgeon Lennon was.

Seven brand new singles were up for consideration in that episode — and Lennon wasn't keen on any of them. He gave Misses to The Tymes' "So Much in Love" ("I thought it was Rolf Harris at first..."), Miriam Makeba's "The Click Song" ("It's quite nice actually, but if it was in English it'd mean even less..."), Russ Conway's "Flamenco" ("It doesn't sound anything like flamenco"), Tom Glazer's "On Top of Spaghetti" ("I can't stand these all-together-now records" complains the man who would one day record a song called "All Together Now" as well as "Give Peace a Chance", perhaps the most 'all-together-now' tune of all time), Paul & Paula's "First Quarrel" ("All these American records are about Jim and Bobby and Alfred and all this"; fun fact: Lennon's good-for-nothing dad was called Alfred) and Julie Grant's "Don't Ever Let Me Down" ("Ah, I can't think of a thing to say"; I think it's safe to say this single wasn't an inspiration for a song with almost the same title he would write six years later).

But the bulk of Lennon's fury was saved for Elvis Presley's "(You're the) Devil in Disguise". Well, he doesn't seem angry as such, just disappointed. Probably not all that surprised by this point either. He sounds resigned to his hero having become a part of the establishment. (After claiming that "he sounds like Bing Crosby", actress Katie Boyle asks John "if he did sound like (him), would it be bad?" to which Lennon replies "well, for Elvis...yes") At one point the witty one in The Beatles makes his feelings on Elvis all too clear: "I don't like him anymore". 

Lennon's bitterness over The King's decline aside, he was correct about this particular single (even if he sounds nothing like old Bing), which is depressingly uninspired. I had been wondering when I was going to get to a genuinely miserable Elvis number one hit (I was starting to think there wasn't going to be one) and here it is! First, good on Presley for having put out a series of passable-to-brilliant singles up until this point. Still, no one connects with every pitch, not every batch of cookies and muffins turns out and not every supposedly unmissable travel destination lives up to the hype so it was inevitable that one of his CHUM number ones was going to be a total dud.

This isn't to say "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" isn't entirely without merit. Grady Martin's very brief guitar solo is stellar, a twelve second burst of rock 'n' roll energy which much of the record's running time can only dream of matching. There's also a tight little three second intro which teases the listener into assuming it's going to be a much better single  So far that's an accumulated quarter of a minute of quality pop-rock but there's not much else to recommend. The wistful verses ("You look like an angel...") are meant to contrast with the sped up chorus but the shift is too abrupt to work. The romantic side of Elvis fails to convince while the shuffling skiffle in the refrain is forced.

I have already mentioned that Elvis really should have ditched his longtime backing group The Jordanaires but at that time it was more just to shake things up than anything else. By this point, however, they were starting to detract from his work. Their backing vocals add absolutely nothing with the guttural Ray Walker doing a "comedic" call-and-response turn of "oh yes, you are" near the end just to have something to do. It says a lot that the King stayed loyal to those who had been with him over the years but he could have done with some fresh faces in the studio.

John Lennon's criticism of the man who he credited with changing his life would continue all the way up until Elvis' death. It is said that he took him to task for his recent spate of lousy records when The Beatles met Presley two years later. When he passed away in 1977, Lennon quipped that "Elvis died when he joined the army" which really tells you that he was in no position to give an unbiased view of his work in the sixties. Nevertheless, "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" is a poorly thought out botch and a very much the Miss that Lennon reckoned. But it happens to the best of us: Lennon himself would record a handful of stinkers in his day too.

Score: 3