What We Can Learn From Elvis

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:29:12 EST

Yesterday I was eating lunch in a diner, and "Hound Dog" was playing on the jukebox. Now I'm an Elvis fan, and always enjoy listening to him whenever I hear him on the radio or television.

But yesterday something caught my ear that I have never heard, and I have heard "Hound Dog" hundreds of times. I was floored when I heard this, and got out my computer to check this out.

The lyric that I always heard went like this this:

"You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine

Well, they said you was high classed
Well, that was just a lie
Well, they said you was high classed
Well, that was just a lie
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine

But here is what I heard yesterday for the first time, and it isn't listed on any of the lyric websites. When the King gets to the second verse he sings:

"Well, you ain't never bought a record
And you ain't no friend of mine"

And it repeats three times.

Ole Elvis was slapping his critics, and of all the times I heard that song, I never heard that line. I'm not sure where the diner got that version, but it ain't the one on the album.

Now I know that Big E was no saint, and had enough flaws for at least a hundred people combined. But that recording had to come fairly early, when he was getting a ton of criticism for just singing in his own style.

He was telling his critics to shut up. And that was a pretty brave thing to do in those days.

Telling your critics to shut their pie hole, (including your inner critic), is something we all need to do from time to time. As my friend Dr. Bill Stillwell put it in his column the other day, "Just because you have an opinion doesn't mean it's credible, or that anybody needs to listen to it." Amen, brother!

If you want to be successful, you need to turn your critics into water, and just let what they have to say roll down the drain. Eventually their opinion will reach the sewer, which is where it belongs.

Meanwhile keep singing.

"You ain't nothing but a hound dog...

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What We Can Learn From Elvis