‘Black Velvet’: A Song about Elvis?

By Oliver Tearle

The late 80s and early 90s witnessed a run on Elvis nostalgia, which is curious when you remember that the King had only shuffled off this mortal coil (while seated on his throne) in 1977. When we consider the absurdity of, say, a slew of musical paeans to Amy Winehouse (died 2011) appearing in 2024, the shocking truth becomes apparent: time really does move differently these days, and nostalgia really ain’t what it used to be.

We’d have to wait until 1991 for Marc Cohn’s haunting piano-laden homage to Elvis the Pelvis, but two years before ‘Walking in Memphis’, the Canadian singer Alannah Myles was setting the charts alight with her tribute to the late King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. And what a tribute ‘Black Velvet’ turned out to be.

Which Version?

Despite being a fan of this song for years, I was today years old (as the kids like to say over on ex-Twitter) when I found out that Myles’ rendition was actually one of two versions of ‘Black Velvet’ recorded in 1989. Even though the Canadian songwriters Christopher Ward and David Tyson had composed the song with Myles specifically in mind, her record label Atlantic also gave the song to the country singer Robin Lee, who released her version a few months after Myles’, in early 1990.

This led to the song being played on pop and rock radio stations and country music stations simultaneously, featuring Myles and Lee respectively. You can listen to Lee’s version here and make up your mind which is the definitive one.

The Title

What’s the meaning of this most powerful of power ballads? Let’s start with the title. A common factoid put about online is that the song is named after a brand of hair dye, Black Velvet, which the King supposedly smeared all over his signature quiff; alternative theories state that portraits of Elvis were often produced on black velvet, and that he wore clothes made of the stuff.

Nobody seems to know for sure, but it’s surely also worth mentioning that Elvis was a white singer who began his career by singing ‘Black’ songs, some of them already recorded and made famous by African-American blues singers (Big Mama Thornton’s recording of ‘Hound Dog’ is perhaps the best-known example).

The Meaning of the Lyrics

Mississippi, the birthplace of Elvis, is the opening word on this sultry, sexy classic. Jimmie Rodgers was a pioneering country singer who, like the Pelvis himself, hailed from Mississippi, born a couple of generations before His Highness arrived into the world in 1935.

A Victrola, while we’re glossing the various period references in this song, was a brand of record player. The baby dancing to the Jimmie Rodgers record, while perched on his mama’s shoulders, is none other than a young Elvis himself, already being introduced to southern music.

Elvis never really lost that boyish charm or the smile he had as a little boy, and his slow southern drawl contributed to his effortless sex appeal.

Of course, Elvis the Pelvis couldn’t just sing, but knew how to move his body, too: his hip gyrations would indeed leave his audiences of adoring fans wanting more, longing for him. Rock ‘n’ roll, embodied by Elvis as both singer and hip-shaker, was a new religion to many people growing up in the ‘decade of the teenager’, disposable income, the rise of the hit singles charts, and the rest of it: that golden era in America’s partly real, partly mythologised past.

Elvis moved to Memphis, recording at the famous Sun Studios there. Of course, he’d eventually buy Graceland, his vast palatial home, in the city. We switch black velvet for White Lightning (a kind of illegally distilled colourless whiskey made from corn: the sort of bootleg alcohol an underage drinker might make or get hold of, and part of the heady excesses of youth which rock ‘n’ roll so neatly dovetailed with).

Now that baby which was on the shoulders of his mother in the first verse has grown up into an international sex symbol, beloved by every teenage girl in America (and beyond).

His song ‘Love Me Tender’, a touching ballad from 1956 early on in Elvis’ career, showed he could move audiences to tears when he wasn’t reducing them to nervous wrecks with the motions of his pelvis.

Much as in ‘Killing Me Softly with His Song’, a number made famous by Roberta Flack and written about the singer Don McLean, audiences connected personally with Elvis’s music. They felt as if he was somehow singling them out among the crowd and singing just for them.

Elvis really was gone in ‘a flash’ (I won’t add ‘in the pan’ … oh, too late). His death, aged just 42, in 1977 left people bereft – with many still, to this day, unable to accept that the King really is No More, even though he’d now be pushing 90 and surely a diet of endless hamburgers would have done for him by now.

This song is a triumph, right from the first note to the final fadeout. A touching tribute to the power of rock ‘n’ roll and its High King, ‘Black Velvet’ is raunchy without being gaudy, moving without being sentimental in the slightest.

Where both Cohn’s ‘Walking in Memphis’ and Robbie Williams’ later ‘Advertising Space’ opt for the slow, downtempo ballad in order to rake over Elvis’ legacy, ‘Black Velvet’ hits us between the eyes with its verve and spirit, its evocative imagery (those ‘molasses’ in the sky), and, carrying the whole lot, Alannah Myles’ electrifying vocals.

It’s sobering to think that, at the time of writing, this song is already 35 years in the past, and we in our grubby contemporary moment are further from the recording of ‘Black Velvet’ than Myles was from Elvis’ arrival as a superstar (in 1956) when she recorded it in 1989. As I said at the beginning, time really does move differently these days, and that’s a sobering thought indeed. Sobering enough to get me reaching for the White Lightning, if I had any.