Elvis Presley - Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Are you lonesome tonight, Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day When I kissed you and called you sweetheart? Do the chairs in your parlor seem...
Are you lonesome tonight,
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?
Elvis is a bit of a self conscious so and so at the end of it all. He would like to know if the subject (presumably an ex flame of his – unofficial sources claim that Elvis dated/slept with (depending on the source) over a thousand women, something that seems incredible until you think about it a bit) is feeling a bit lonely now that they’ve apparently moved on from him. In a somewhat cheerful passage of lyrical writing, he would very much like to know if this subject will indulge him in his vanity by basically saying how much they miss him, how much they loved him and just how ace in general he is really.
He also however makes some hysterically funny points which are either really self depreciating and ironic or just a sign that he really is a pretentious, vain blotch on the landscape of the earth. “Are the chairs bare and empty?” – I presume this to be a reference to his exceptional weight problems and the fact that you really would notice him in any room and from the probable dents in the floor would know that he was certainly there – or at least by the broken furniture anyway. Elvis would also like to ask the subject whether they stare in awe at their doorstep and picture the giant himself appearing there with demands for grand sandwiches, large fizzy drinks and lots and lots of lovely drugs.
What an example of a great man.
I wonder if you’re lonesome tonight You know someone said that the worlds a stage And each must play a part. Fate had me playing in love you as my sweet heart. Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue Then came act two, you seemed to change and you acted strange And why Ill never know.
Elvis would still like to know whether or not the subject is feeling a bit lonely and down on themselves tonight. Elvis then makes some cringeworthy comments regarding the world being a stage and indeed a play (it would be a bit rubbish, like one of those nouveau plays where you go and watch people walking around in a naturalistic style, much like the effect you may enjoy if you sat on a park bench, the only difference being you’ve paid £35 this time) and he talks about the first couple of acts although interestingly enough neglects to talk about how it might end. I think that this particular global play will end in a style similar to that of Hamlet, with everyone killing everyone else – but maybe if Hamlet were crossed with, say, 28 Days Later or Resident Evil. Just to make things a bit more interesting really, I don’t necessarily believe it but how cool would real zombies be?
I always felt the world was a bit more like Peep Show anyway…
Honey, you lied when you said you loved me And I had no cause to doubt you. But Id rather go on hearing your lies Than go on living without you. Now the stage is bare and Im standing there With emptiness all around And if you wont come back to me Then make them bring the curtain down. Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again? Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?
It would appear that there has been deceit, lies, subterfuge! The subject (a pot of honey now apparently, very fitting) claimed to love Elvis but in reality the pot of honey was just clogging up his arteries like all of the rest of the fast food he was consuming. He however had no reason to doubt this (one assumes nutritional information wasn’t compulsory on foodstuffs at this time, let alone the much-fabled traffic light system), and it was easier for him to sit there and enjoy his honey than to move onto jam or marmite or something alternative like that. The ‘stage’ (presumably either his cupboard or perhaps his kitchen table) is empty and bare, maybe because of the fact that he has eaten all of his jars of honey and he really wishes he had more.
Elvis decides that perhaps it would be easier to commit suicide than to go on living without his pot(s) of honey. A radical solution, and perhaps this is the real reason for his death a few years later.
Who knows?
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