“Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” by Kacey Musgraves, Tuesday, June 27, 2023
LIKE A RIVER FLOWS SURELY TO THE SEA. Like many of Elvis Presley's songs, the king of Rock 'n Roll didn't write "Can't Help Falling In Love with You." However, being one of the singer's later hits, the song was not a popularized classic like many of Elvis' early big hits. Instead, the song was written for one of Elvis' films, Blue Hawaii. The 1961 film came during a string of Elvis films following the singer's enlistment and discharge from the U.S. Army. The tune for "Can't Help Falling in Love with You" is based on the 1784 French love song by the composer Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, "Plasir d'amour." The simple song became one of Presley's many number-one hits and has been covered by many artists from U2 to Ice Nine Kills. Today's version appears in the film Elvis in the scene in which Presley (played by Austin Butler) meets his future wife Pricilla (née Beaulieu) Presley as Elvis is still serving his military service. The Kacey Musgraves easy-listening ballad serves as a love theme for the film. Unfortunately, Presley's lifestyle and, according to the film, the direction of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' manager, would cost Presley his marriage and eventually his life.
WOULD IT BE A SIN? A Baz Luhrmann production is certainly an avant-garde experience and music often plays a more important role in his films than audiences may expect. From '90s rock in Romeo + Juliet to 20th-century jukebox classics in a film set a year before the 20th century in Moulin Rouge to hip-hop appearing in the roaring '20s in The Great Gatsby, Luhrmann's musical tastes may ruin some viewers' suspension of disbelief. Elvis also incorporates modern sounds with artists like Doja Cat, Eminem, Stevie Nicks, and Musgraves, as well as Elvis tracks performed by Austin Butler as Elvis. In 2022 and now 2023, we're left with the enormous task of judging the past with all of its grandeur and problematic nature in our understanding of what is right and wrong. A figure like Elvis Presley at one time was the beginning of American rockstar fame-- a kind of fame more akin to worship and less concerned with scrutiny. But in the decades since we said our final goodbyes to Elvis, the critical voice that tells us some of the things from the life and career of America's original idol weren't right and can no longer be pushed aside with an "of the day" justification. Presley appropriating and downright stealing songs from black artists has been criticized in recent years, and I believe that in a way, Luhrmann, by having the songs performed in the film in African American clubs by contemporary black artists making the songs their own is a way that the film tries to reconcile this cultural conundrum. It's unfair that black artists couldn't take their own songs to white audiences the way that Elvis did, but society was fundamentally unfair. Now we must credit the sources of the problematic king.
UB40 cover:
Film version:
Kacey Musgraves Live:
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