IF I CAN DREAM, I’ll have this article finished before I find myself sitting on the edge of reality. You know—where life’s dream lies disillusioned and dark shadows follow me. (But that’s another story for another time.) Each year on this day I try to write something about my experience of being an Elvis fan since I was in grade school way, way back in the ’50s. But I’m gonna make it happen today and write about the pseudo-psychedelic Elvis of 1968!
Usually, I find some excuse for not completing anything—for a while, it was good bourbon, now my excuse is old age. I could write about where I was on that day forty years ago—in a bar (of course), drinking (of course), waiting for a woman (duh)—and how indelible that memory is, even clearer than the one from November 22, 1963.
Instead, I’m going to ramble on about one of my favorite singles in the Presley catalog, If I Can Dream, but I will be focusing on the B-side, Edge Of Reality.
The story begins in October 1968, when the brouhaha over the upcoming Elvis television special was really ramping up. During the first week of November, we finally got a taste of it with the release of the new single.
The first time heard If I Can Dream was late at night, lying in bed with my transistor radio. I was stunned: Elvis sounded angry, something I’d never heard in his music before.
NOTE: This article was originally published on August 16, 2017. Unfortunately, I misspelled psychedelic (Hah!) in both the title and the permalink. So I corrected that and made a few changes to the article.
This is one of many publicity photos circulated to promote the upcoming NBC-TV “Singer Presents Elvis” special. For his second comeback of the decade, Elvis worked out harder than usual and lost weight, adding a deep tan along the way. Lean and maturely sexy, this was arguably the best he ever looked.
I walk along a thin line
The record was unlike anything that he had recorded. In fact, it was unlike anything anyone had recorded! Like Heartbreak Hotel, it defied categorization: it wasn’t rock & roll, but it sure in hell wasn’t easy listening!
There was no rhythm, but there was a lot of blues. 1
Presley’s singing was all passion anger hurt as he pleaded for a better land where all his brothers walked hand in hand. There was no resignation to the inevitability of racism and xenophobia—quite the opposite, as his singing implied rage at its very existence!
This was a far, far cry (and a very welcomed cry!) from the Elvis we had become uncomfortable with for the previous few years—the Elvis of Girl Happy and Harum Scarum and Clambake.
The American picture sleeve for If I Can Dream / Edge Of Reality featured the same graphics on both sides but the front cover advertised If I Can Dream (the hit side) while the back advertised Edge Of Reality (the flip-side).
A curiously moribund icon
Praise galore has been written about If I Can Dream, including my own articles here on this site. But I want to include a few words from by John Ross in a newly posted piece on his The Round Place In The Middle site:
“[Elvis] no more knew how to walk a straight line through If I Can Dream than he had known how to move like anybody else when he hit a television stage for the first time on the Dorsey Brothers’ Stage Show in the early months of ’56. The key to Elvis at his best, from first to last, was that he looked at a confined conjunction of time and/or space—a TV stage, a recording studio, the length of a record, the meaning available in a lyric—and imagined it differently than anyone else did.
So, faced with a song that fit squarely into existing traditions—he could take it as uplift (like King’s speech), as cautionary tale (like Dylan), as a means to look beyond the stars (like Kennedy), as the running of a secret tide that won’t be turned back (like Cooke), or even as an excuse to give in to the moment and re-orient the Protestant Reformation, with its promise of moving man’s Golden Age (which America now represented full-blown), from the past to the future, and simply realizing it in the Present—what was a poor boy to do?
Standing square in the middle of 1968, the most volatile year in American history since the end of the Civil War, standing there, according to many, as a curiously moribund icon, waiting for his wax statue, with his place as a permanently employed Entertainer set out neatly and securely before him, he did what he always did at a crisis … the unexpected.
He seized the song by the throat.
And he didn’t let it go.”
And that’s all, folks, that you are going to read about this extraordinary recording in this article! For more, click on over to John’s article, “How Much Can One Record Mean.”
This is one of several posters used by theaters across the country to promote the movie. Those few diehard fans left in late ’68 like me were reassured that our guy still clicked with the chicks! 2
How great who art?
During the mid-’60s, Presley seemed disengaged with his musical career, which was tied to his movie career, which was in a rapid downward spiral. He also seemed disengaged from the consensual reality we all shared, trapped in another time and place, where most of The Sixties hadn’t happened.
Much of this was due to the long-standing contracts with uninspired movie producers; much of it was due to Colonel Parker’s belief that not performing in front of a live audience upped the demand for those movies.
I walk along a thin line, dark shadows follow me. Here’s where life’s dream lies disillusioned on the edge of reality.
After recording movie music almost exclusively between 1963 and 1966, Elvis had started recording in the studio in May 1966 with his new producer, Felton Jarvis. These efforts had produced one of his greatest achievements, the HOW GREAT THOU ART album, along with several notable sides (such as Tomorrow Is A Long Time, Indescribably Blue, and Guitar Man). His engagement with these recordings was dramatically different than the indifference with which he treated the movie sides.
By 1968, all this was all building to a head: the dumb movies and their insipid soundtracks, none of which were making any real money; the lack of contact with his fans; the lack of respect that anyone in the recording business was showing him.
Also around this time, he looked in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw, mainly the doughboy softness in his waist and jaw-line. He made the necessary changes and the world was suddenly looking at a lean and sexy new Elvis, one who at least looked like he was in command.
This is the French picture sleeve (RCA Hit Parade 49.574), clearly indicating that the featured side is Edge Of Reality, listed atop If I Can Dream. I don’t know why RCA flipped the A- and B-sides in some countries; shouldn’t every branch of the company have been focused on promoting the upcoming television special and its attendant soundtrack LP album?
A little more action, please
The latest Elvis movie was Live A Little, Love A Little, a title that could cast a pall over any movie. Fortunately, the musical supervisor was Billy Strange, who thought Elvis’s sound needed a facelift. Strange dispensed with Presley’s usual sidekicks and brought in L.A. session players, some of whom had worked with Elvis in the past.
The brief soundtrack consisted of only four songs: Almost In Love, a flirtation with South American samba-ish ambiance and actual adult-oriented pop; A Little Less Conversation, an awkward if interesting rocker; Wonderful World, a European-tinged ballad that should have been forgotten; and Edge Of Reality. 3
The latter was written by the team of Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, and Florence Kaye, who had provided Elvis with a load of crappy movie songs in the past, although they had also given him the irresistible (You’re The) Devil In Disguise.
Whoever talked to them, this time the trio came through with Edge Of Reality, a rather unconventional song with rather interesting lyrics, which seem to address a man on the borderline of acute anxiety or even paranoia, with strange voices, torment, doom, and nameless faces.
This is Edge Of Reality in full, glorious Sixties stereo.
Enjoy!
I can hear strange voices echo
These are the lyrics to Edge Of Reality as I hear them:
I walk along a thin line, darling,
dark shadows follow me.
Here’s where life’s dream lies disillusioned—
the edge of reality.
I can hear strange voices echo,
laughing with mockery.
The borderline of doom I’m facing—
the edge of reality.
On the edge of reality, she sits there tormenting me—
the girl with the nameless name.
On the edge of reality, where she overpowers me
with fears that I can’t explain.
She drove me to the point of madness, the brink of misery.
If she’s not real, then I’m condemned to the edge of reality.
On the edge of reality, she sits there tormenting me—
the girl with the nameless name.
On the edge of reality, where she overpowers me
with fears that I can’t explain.
She drove me to the point of madness, the brink of misery.
If she’s not real, then I’m condemned to the edge of reality.
The record’s arrangement is punctuated by loud brass and swirling orchestration. Elvis’s vocal has a staggered sound, like he is punching out certain words or sounds. Combined with the excellent production, the whole thing is quite effective, sounding like high-quality pseudo-psychedelic rock.
This was something that no one—certainly not fans like me!—had expected from him. Appropriately, it was used in a dream sequence in Live A Little, Love A Little.
In keeping with the Colonel’s promise to plug Presley’s movies, Edge Of Reality was selected as the flip-side to If I Can Dream. At least it was the flip-side in most parts of the world: in some areas, the local branch of RCA saw Edge Of Reality as the more commercial side and issued the single with it as the A-side.
In Australia, it reached #2 on the national Hit Parade, and actually made it to #1 on the regional Melbourne chart!
Released in October 1970, ALMOST IN LOVE was a budget album that haphazardly compiled seven tracks from recent movie soundtracks with three studio recordings. What made it special for Elvis fans was the presence of reasonably strong selections like U.S. Male and A Little Less Conversation (1968) and Clean Up Your Own Backyard and Rubberneckin’ (1969), most of them in stereo for the first time. 4
Almost in love
Of course, after hearing If I Can Dream on the radio, I rushed to Joe Nardone’s record shop in Wayne’s department Store the next day and bought it. While some companies were issuing singles in stereo in 1968, If I Can Dream / Edge Of Reality was in mono.
Edge Of Reality finally appeared in stereo on the ALMOST IN LOVE album (Camden CAS-2440) in October 1970. This was fortuitous timing, as two things happened in my life around this time:
1. I dropped acid for the first time (and yes, that’s yet another story for another time).
2. I moved into my first apartment, which quickly became one of the most psychedelicized pads in the decidedly un-psychedelic city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
I played host to a lot of music-lovers and had a reasonably good sound system—we called them “stereos” back then—with large floor speakers and the ability to crank up the volume. (It was an old building with thick floors and walls and very few neighbors.)
Visitors to my apartment who got high or tripped with me could expect to hear SGT. PEPPER and HAPPY TRAILS and CHILDREN OF THE FUTURE and IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD and LIVE/DEAD. But when they were lying back rapturous with headphones wrapped around their heads, I would slip the unexpected onto the turntable. But amongst these, I always slipped something unexpected onto the turntable.
And Edge Of Reality in stereo played loud never failed to impress, with or without headphones. I don’t know how many hippies or psychonauts ever bothered to put Elvis on when they were “out there,” but they missed a helluva trip that might have taken them on a magic swirling ship that came within reach of the edge of reality.
“If I Can Dream” wasn’t rock & roll, but it sure in hell wasn’t easy listening! Click To Tweet
FEATURED IMAGE: Michelle Carey boldly goes where no woman should go and attempts morning after a conversation with Elvis while shaves with a straight-razor in this scene from Live A Little, Love A Little. If you’re in the bathroom when a man holds a straight-razor to his throat, consider a little less conversation and absolutely no action, please! Note that if you just look at Elvis, this could be a scene from a movie in 1958.
FOOTNOTES:
1 A contemporary reviewer for Cash Box might have described it as “hard pop with a rocking beat.”
2 The first eleven months of 1968 was probably the nadir of Presley’s career in terms of popularity, record sales, and movie grosses. This all changed with the December broadcast of the television special followed by the fabulous music he recorded at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio in Memphis in January and February 1969 (In The Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, Don’t Cry Daddy, and Kentucky Rain were all million-selling hits from these sessions).
3 No one has ever explained who was responsible for the improved quality of the movie songs in 1968 and ’69, but they had definitely improved. They weren’t great, and they were too-little-too-late to restore him to pop chart prominence, but they were a step in the right direction.
4 ALMOST IN LOVE was one of fifteen Elvis albums containing twenty-one records that RCA issued in the US in 1970-1971. Despite this flooding of the market, most of them were certified for Gold Record Awards.
If I Can Dream is probably my favorite Elvis performance.In the UK it was backed with Memories which as a 15 year old I was not too keen on but of course it grew on me over the years.As far as I recall it has never been released as a single in the UK but I did manage to get a import.Great song but very odd.
D
If I Can Dream will always be one of my faves Elvis records. Memories as a single made sense in early 1969 as it was a new song with a lovely performance. I certainly thought it was gonna be a bigger hit when it came out.
N
Hey Neal,
“EOR” is a great song to discuss. I thought it came out come of lame in the movie, the whole dream sequence and Elvis bopping across the screen in various contorted positions, which detracted from the song itself. But it certainly was a giant step forward in terms of recording a quality tune for a change.
Re: “If I Can Dream”, I remember Cissy Houston saying that as she watched Elvis sing the song, she knew that this man believed every word he was saying. I always considered it a precursor to Lennon’s “Imagine”, and thought it should have been a much bigger hit. I think it peaked at #12 on Billboard. Underrated and underappreciated, except on Sirius. Do you plan to catch the Fathom Production special release of “Elvis Unleashed”? It’s showing at theaters across the US on Oct. 7 and 10th. It’s advertised as unseen footage from the “68 Special. I understand that while the starting time for the movie is 7 p.m, there’s a half-hour preceding it with some commentary that might prove interesting.
In case I didn’t mention it previously, I love the fact that you use “Doncha Think It’s Time” to leave a comment. It breaks my heart that the “A” side, “Wear My ring Around Your Neck”, which was Elvis’s fastest rising chart record on the Top 100, entering the charts at #7!!! never got to #! thanks to “Witch Doctor” and “All I Have To Do is Dream.”
N
1. I thought the dream sequence in Live a Little was pretty lame, too, but given most of the movies that preceded it (Double Trouble, Clambake, etc.) it was daring. That such silliness was “daring” for Elvis illustrates how out of it he was at the time. That and the fact that Live a Little played as the B-movie in drive-in double-features in 1968.
2. By the time “If I Can Dream” came out in late ’68, Elvis was not taken seriously by a lot of people, including the programmers and jocks at many radio stations around the country. If the data exists anywhere, I’d bet you a buck-three-eighty that the percentage of AM radio stations that played it was considerably fewer than the number that played “JCrimson and Clover” and “Everyday People.” And if hit got any FM play in 1968-1969, I’d be surprised.
3. “If I Can Dream” was a much bigger hit on the Cash Box Top 100, spending three weeks in the Top 10.
4. I will be looking for Elvis Unleashed in local theaters. Thanks for the heads-up!
5. I loved “Doncha Think It’s Time” the very first time I heard it, probably in 1962 when I was 10 years old and the proud inheritor of my Aunt Judy’s collection of 45s from 1956-1962.
I will leave off with these words: “Ooo! Eee! Ooo ah ah, walla walla bing bang.” Someone should turn those into a rap arrangement …
N
Just a quick thought on the movie Live A Little, Love A Little. It was a bit of a flop, all told, not even being released in the UK. I often wonder if it would have fared better if they had kept the title of the book it was based on by Dan Greenburg: Kiss My Firm But Pliant Lips. Surely one of the strangest book titles of all time. Indeed, it is one of the strangest books I have ever read. I have just obtained a 1965 hardback copy published. Albert the dog is a German Shepherd here not a Great Dane, by the way. Fun book.
D
I don’t know when the title was changed to Live a Little, but I remember the original announcements for it calling it Kiss My Firm But Pliant Lips in Crawdaddy or Variety. Made me run to the dictionary to look up “pliant.”
By this time in 1968, had Elvis made a truly fine movie with a soundtrack of twelve killer sides, I doubt many people would have paid for either tickets ar the album.
Exactly how badly Elvis needed the television special will probably never be understood by those who weren’t there then.
N
Amen to that.
Always enjoyed the the song ‘The Edge of Reality’ to listen to.….Nix!!! on the strange ‘dream sequence’ in the movie though. I consider… ‘If I Can Dream’.… Elvis’s best performance ever!!
C
The dream sequence left a lot to be desired. People who have never done acid should never try to do anything even remotely “psychedelic.”
“If I Can Dream” became one of my faveravest Elvis recordings the first time I hear it in October 1968. It’s a shame he didn’t look for or request more songs like this.
N