“IT’S MIDNIGHT”. THE DESOLATION OF MAN. THE PAIN OF THE ARTIST.
The year 1973, after the realization of his tremendous television program “Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite“, and with his delicate personal situation: the expectation of his near divorce, his constant health problems, and his absolute state of discouragement, desolation and impotence. , Elvis lost the desire to move on.In addition, he had his beloved daughter, Lisa Marie, at home, so he did not want to be away from her, because of his work.
But he had contractual obligations that he could not evade. Among them, the realization of some recording sessions, since they had to carry out the record releases required by RCA.
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So Elvis asked his friend Marty Lacker for advice, who knew the recording studios in Memphis best.
Marty was very clear about it, just like when he proposed to work with Chips Moman at American Sound.
His choice was Stax Studios, which was only a few minutes from Graceland.
The distance from 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard (Graceland), to the Stax Records headquarters at 926 East McLemore Avenue is just over 5 miles. And Elvis was fine with it.
So it was that in 1973, two of Memphis’s biggest icons, Elvis Presley and Stax Records, came together.
Out of these sessions, despite all the complications of the situation, wonderful songs would come out.
Elvis began recording in the month of July, but everything turned out to be very difficult and very problematic, ending very badly, due to Elvis’s discouragement and all the insurmountable complications that arose. Thus, the sessions could not be completed.
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For this reason, on December 10, 1973, Elvis returned to Stax Studios in Memphis. And that day he recorded the song “It’s Midnight.”
The lyrics and music of the song belong to the composers Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Chesnut.
A devastating song in which Elvis reflects his devastated state of mind. A heartbreaking declaration of pain and guilt for the desire to want to forget the lost love.
The lyrics of the song could be perfectly describing Elvis’s feelings and heartbreak at that moment, for which he poured himself body and soul into his interpretation.
A song with a delicious score, where the choirs have great prominence and Elvis’s voice sounds overwhelming and painful.
The feeling with which Elvis describes his inner desolation makes us see ourselves in our own bed in the dark, facing the loneliness of the night and abandonment, and we experience it as if it were happening to ourselves.
The song was published in the USA, as a single, as an A-side, along with Chuck Berry‘s song, “Promised Land“, on October 1, 1974. In other countries and on other releases it would appear as a B-side.
Elvis would sing this song live beginning in the summer of 1974:
“Maybe it’s too late. Sometimes I even hate myself for loving you
Trying to be strong then nighttime comes along and I start loving you
Wanting you. Where is all my self control I’m burning way down in my soul
And needing you, and wishing I could be the man, I try to
Hating me for wanting you to be with you knowing you don’t love me like you used to
But it’s midnight, Oh and I miss you“
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A magnificent interpretation with a chilling projection of his pain, his helplessness and his broken soul.
Here is the link to the studio version of the song:
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Information provided ELVIS. El Chico De Tupelo.
Rosa Garcia Mora
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