Elvis Presley – ‘Crying In The Chapel’

28 June 1965

‘Crying In The Chapel’ sees Elvis entering his Tiny Tim phase. Not Tiny Tim the whimsical ’60s falsetto folkie: Elvis here goes all-in on his low, sonorous, serious croon. No, I mean poor little Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol, hoping people would see his small, frail figure in church and be inspired with religious feeling. That’s literally how the lyrics of this song go; he’s weeping in the house of God, you see him at it, you both get hopped up on the vague holiness of it all. Such preening sanctimony overpowers me like a waft of burning incense or a fart in a confession box.

Of course, in a ’60s Irish church Elvis would be standing arms-folded inside the door with the dads and corner-boys, all like coiled springs waiting for the ‘Go-‘ in the final “Thanks be to God” (or its nearest pre-vernacular Latin equivalent) so they could rush out and buy the Sunday paper. Elvis, leave the building.