Sequel songs

Pretty self-explanatory
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Hawksmoor
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Sequel songs

Post by Hawksmoor »

OK, so we've now worked out (from the lyrics, and from occasional EC comments) that 'Under Lime' is a (possibly pretty loose) sequel to 'Jimmie Standing in the Rain'. Which got me thinking: are there any other songs in Elvis' oeuvre which are direct (or even indirect) sequels to other songs he's written?

There's 'Monkey to Man' which is a kind-of sequel to 'The Monkey' (but that's Dave Bartholomew, not an EC original). And I suppose you could argue that 'American Without Tears #2' is, lyrically, a sequel to 'American Without Tears'.

There must be some other obvious ones I'm missing?
Neil.
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by Neil. »

Yes, there's a sequel to 'American Without Tears', called 'American Without Tears (Twilight Version)'. It's got the same melody, but a very different arrangement and lyrics.
Hawksmoor
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by Hawksmoor »

Neil. wrote:Yes, there's a sequel to 'American Without Tears', called 'American Without Tears (Twilight Version)'. It's got the same melody, but a very different arrangement and lyrics.
Agree. It's a bit cryptic, but I always thought the lyrics of the 'twilight' version were about how their lives had worked out, years after the events of the original song.

There's also the 'Dallas' version of 'Less than Zero' but it's not really a sequel as such. it just tweaks some of the lyrics to make 'Mr Oswald' into Lee Harvey Oswald instead of Oswald Mosley. Which is a neat trick, but not really a sequel.
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by Neil. »

Oh, I somehow missed the fact that you'd already mentioned that song in your first message. What a 'narna, soz!
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krm
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by krm »

Omie Wise - What Lewis did Last. but then again Omie wise is not an EC original
stricttime81
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by stricttime81 »

Didn't EC mention at some of the IB shows that "Long Honeymoon" is a sort of sequel to Watching the Detectives? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.
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Hawksmoor
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by Hawksmoor »

stricttime81 wrote:Didn't EC mention at some of the IB shows that "Long Honeymoon" is a sort of sequel to Watching the Detectives? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.
Never heard that before, but if you look at the lyrics of each, that's a really intriguing idea. :D
FAVEHOUR
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by FAVEHOUR »

stricttime81 wrote:Didn't EC mention at some of the IB shows that "Long Honeymoon" is a sort of sequel to Watching the Detectives? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.
That's what he said. The TV's still on, but it's just showing "snow"...and it's not Christmas. And the boy.....he's gone.
Hawksmoor
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by Hawksmoor »

FAVEHOUR wrote:
stricttime81 wrote:Didn't EC mention at some of the IB shows that "Long Honeymoon" is a sort of sequel to Watching the Detectives? Maybe I'm mis-remembering.
That's what he said. The TV's still on, but it's just showing "snow"...and it's not Christmas. And the boy.....he's gone.
So the gist would be that in 'WTD' they're in the early stages of the relationship but things are already a bit wobbly and she spends a fair bit of time watching cop-shows on her own? And by 'TLH' they're married but he's never home because he's out with her best friend? That kind-of fits.

To be honest, there's probably dozens of sets of three-or-four Elvis songs that you could group together and tease out some kind of narrative thread for the characters in them. It's a surprise that it's taken him thirty years to get around to writing a musical, I guess.

On a complete tangent, Squeeze's 'Labelled with Love' always feels to me like the sad final chapter of the narrative that runs through 'American Without Tears' and 'American Without Tears (Twilight Version)'. 'LWL' is a few years earlier, of course (but Elvis produced it)?

On another (and utterly unrelated) tangent, does anybody know whether 'Two Little Hitlers' was written as a kind-of joke/response to Nick Lowe's 'Little Hitler'? The timing would be about right. And it was around the time that Nick was doing his Bowie title-related in-jokes ('(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass', the 'Bowi' EP, all that).
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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by verbal gymnastics »

It's also worth pointing out that some of the songs on The Delivery Man are linked.
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Hawksmoor
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Re: Sequel songs

Post by Hawksmoor »

verbal gymnastics wrote:It's also worth pointing out that some of the songs on The Delivery Man are linked.
Good point. Wasn't that vaguely intended for a musical/theatrical presentation of some kind before Elvis got bored/lost interest/couldn't raise the finance/whatever? And there's the Hans Christian Anderson thing, of course. Did that ever even get performed?
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