We're caught in a trap/I can't walk out/Because I love you too much baby

March 14, 2022 7:59 AM

We can't build our dreams on suspicious minds: In 1968 songwriter/Houstonian Mark James (née Francis Zambon) was married to his first wife but had feelings for his childhood sweetheart, Karen Taylor, who was also married. He wrote “Suspicious Minds” about his feelings.

Elvis Presley had revitalized his career with his 68 Comeback Special (YouTube playlist) in December 1968. In January 1969 he went to American Sound Studio in Memphis to record From Elvis in Memphis with the house band The Memphis Boys. (From Elvis in Memphis was his first non-soundtrack or gospel album since Elvis for Everyone! in August 1965.) Mark James successfully pitched “Suspicious Minds” to Elvis.

Mark James was in Memphis at the time, but he was not at the recording session. He had walked into the recording studio a few days earlier, and felt that Elvis was uncomfortable with his presence. As he did not want to ruin things, he decided to stay away.

At first, James thought the new song sounded too slow. When he later heard the full version, he remarked he was “blown away.”

Elvis’ version of “Suspicious Minds” (original/live) became his last Number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and was #91 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.

Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter covered the song (live) in 1970.

Dee Dee Warwick recorded a downtempo soul cover in 1971.
Sister of Dionne Warwick, niece of Cissy Houston, and cousin of Whitney Houston.

Fine Young Cannibals did an uptempo cover in 1968 that paid homage to Elvis in general and his 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong album cover in particular.

Dwight Yoakam recorded his version (live) in 1992, for the soundtrack of the film Honeymoon in Vegas.

“Suspicious Minds” has often been used in movie soundtracks, including Breathless (1983), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Frequency (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Army of the Dead (2021).

Mark James also wrote “Hooked on a Feeling” (sans ooga-chaka; con ooga-chaka by Blue Swede), which is also about Karen Taylor, and co-wrote “Always on My Mind” (live performance by the songwriters), later covered by Elvis (caution: contains syrup), Willie Nelson, and Pet Shop Boys.

Mark James and Karen Taylor later got married. ( Apparently James' first wife managed to find a way to walk out. Unclear if James Taylor was involved.)

posted by kirkaracha (30 comments total)

“Suspicious Minds” is such a jamming song I loved it every time I listened to all of the different versions while writing this post. Props. The Waylon Jennings/Jessi Colter cover is really nice and I like it better than the original. I‘d say James' biggest fail in his original is not emphasizing the awesome hook.

Back in the day I DJ'd a wedding and was accosted by an intoxicated celebrant who said I was playing the Fine Young Cannibals‘ cover at “the wrong speed.”

“Hooked on a Feeling” was recorded with varying levels of ooga-chaka by artists including Jonathan King and The Twinkle Brothers before Blue Swede's hit version.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:01 AM on March 14, 2022 [6 favorites]

OOGA-CHAKA IS HOW I FEEL INSIDE RICK
posted by briank at 8:06 AM on March 14, 2022 [27 favorites]

This is a really nice write up. Thank you! I went to school with his daughter and knew him and his family quite well.
posted by manageyourexpectations at 8:15 AM on March 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

née Francis Zambon

so "Suspicious Minds" was the backup plan until the ice smoothing machine went big?
posted by chavenet at 8:24 AM on March 14, 2022 [19 favorites]

Suspicious Minds rates high indeed for me. On the surface, it's about a guy who was "... was married to his first wife but had feelings for his childhood sweetheart,". But go a deeper and it's about the entirety of humankind, particularly in the pervasive Cold War shadows of thermonuclear weaponry.

We really cannot build our dreams on suspicious minds -- NO FUTURE for anyone.

Elvis has long annoyed the hell out of me. He was never king of anything to me, just some aging hype with obvious physical and mental health problems by the time I hit my teen years and started paying attention to him. I hated it when he died but only because the f***ing radio wouldn't stop playing his music for a period of weeks. I still remember that as one of the punishing seasons of my life.

But if there's a god, I know that he/she/they put him here on earth to sing Suspicious Minds and launch it as the worldwide hit it became. I wouldn't be surprised to find it penetrated the Iron Curtain and maybe stopped at least one Soviet leader from moving from nuclear push to shove. And now we need it more than ever.
posted by philip-random at 8:31 AM on March 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

In the 80's I had a cassette of Elvis in Vegas and this song was the anchor - it somehow blossomed out of the stereo - any stereo, boom-box, car stereo, home stereo, it didn't matter, it was just majestic and banal and sublime. I fucking love this song. And so I fucking love this FPP. Thank you.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:33 AM on March 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

This whole time, I just hummed along in denial, thinking the old friend who stopped by to say hello really was just a friend, and everything would be ok if the lady would just trust the guy. I legit thought it was an ode to trust and a warning against the eroding effects of unwarranted jealousy. And here he was in love with his friend the whole time. This level of gullibility explain a LOT about my romantic history. Thank you for the eye opening post!
posted by Merricat Blackwood at 8:44 AM on March 14, 2022 [21 favorites]

I always wondered about the fade-out fake-out--from the song's Wikipedia page:

RCA staff producer Felton Jarvis made the unusual decision to add a fade-out to the song starting at 3:36 and lasting for nearly 15 seconds before fading back into the song. The first verse then continues repeatedly until the song completely fades out. In a 2012 interview with Marc Myers of The Wall Street Journal, Moman disclosed that Jarvis was never happy with Elvis recording at American Sound Studio, saying "it was a control thing". Moman added, "So when Jarvis took the tape of 'Suspicious Minds', he added this crazy 15-second fade toward the end, like the song was ending, and brought it back by overdubbing to extend it. I have no idea why he did that, but he messed it up. It was like a scar in the song - a scar not too well-liked. Not that it mattered, though - soon after the song was released, Elvis was back on top of the charts". However, it could be argued that the fade-out is a reference to the lyrics ("caught in a trap\I can't walk out").
posted by indexy at 9:21 AM on March 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am tepid on Elvis (though I recognize there's some serious songsmanship there, especially in songs like this) but my god do I love the FYC cover of "Suspicious Minds" and PSB's "Always On My Mind".
posted by Lyn Never at 9:30 AM on March 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

The FYC version is great -- love the more active baseline.

Mods, the date on the FYC video is incorrect. I assume it's 1986? '88?
posted by HeroZero at 9:33 AM on March 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

(86, yes, prob. just a transposition)
posted by gimonca at 9:39 AM on March 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Cornell Campbell's reggae cover is reeaal phoned-in in the way that a lot of Jamaican covers of non-Jamaican songs are, but Hortense Ellis (produced by Lee Perry, even) gets it.

(In the interest of JA 'Suspicious Minds' covers completeness, I should add that Saint & Campbell's version exists.)
posted by box at 9:51 AM on March 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

great post for a Monday.. I thought Dwight did it well, it's such a good tune you'd almost have to try hard to do it poorly

I really can't harsh on Elvis... not a huge fan, but it is what it is, he definitely had something
edit to add: ouch! chavenet, to the penalty box for you
posted by elkevelvet at 10:28 AM on March 14, 2022

Now this is how to post.

And for you Elvis sceptics, three words: The Sun Sessions. Old Elvis may have drooled but Young Elvis rules.

& Bubba-ho-tep and Elvissey 4ever!
posted by y2karl at 11:24 AM on March 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

It's not an Elvis song without some kind of publishing shenanigans.
posted by ovvl at 11:51 AM on March 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

wow, that FYC cover.. I'd forgotten all about the band, now it's all coming back to me

stellar, always loved their sound and they own the tune
posted by elkevelvet at 11:53 AM on March 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

And for you Elvis sceptics, three words: The Sun Sessions. Old Elvis may have drooled but Young Elvis rules.


I was pretty shocked when I realized that "old Elvis" died at the ancient age of 42!. I mean Chris Pratt and Jason Momoa are 42 right now.
posted by octothorpe at 12:08 PM on March 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

IMO what makes Suspicious Minds are those killer background vocals! According to Wikipedia, Donna Thatcher, Mary "Jeannie" Greene, Ginger Holladay and Mary Holladay sang on the track.

Website Songfacts says:
Donna Jean Godchaux, who sang backup on James' original and also on Elvis' recording, told Songfacts: "Elvis was in the studio at American Sound in Memphis, and our friend Mark James, who wrote 'Suspicious Minds,' had an office there. Elvis walked by Mark's office and Mark was playing the demo that we had done - we had done the background vocals on his version of 'Suspicious Minds.' Elvis walked in and said, 'I want that song and I want those girls.'"

The other backup singers were Jeanie Greene, and the sisters Mary and Ginger Holliday. They also sang on "In The Ghetto."
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 12:25 PM on March 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

That Waylon/Jessi Cotter cover really sounds like the two vocals were recorded in completely different studios, and maybe even not intending to be duetting with each other. A totally different vocal sound and phrasing from each of them, especially for a genre and era with so many great duets with singers really paying attention to matching each other.
posted by Jon_Evil at 12:56 PM on March 14, 2022

(caution: contains syrup)

Yeahhhh. Willie Nelson's version is still the best. Probably my favorite Elvis number is still "If I Can Dream", from that comeback special.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:53 PM on March 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: recorded with varying levels of ooga-chaka
posted by kirkaracha at 3:00 PM on March 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

Having had a more than passing interest in Elvis in the past, (Satire so finely honed most people missed the point. Yes, dear reader, my longtime collaborator and I wrote it.) "Suspicious Minds" is at the top of my Elvis favorites list. That said, when I was diagnosed with an addictive personality disorder I consulted a Yogi, who felt my chakras were out of alignment. She proceeded to align my chakras, and discovered that most important chakra of all was totally out of alignment. And that, oh best beloved, was how I was healed. Turns out I was hooked on a feeling, so she re-aligned my Ooga Chakra.
(Nope. Not sorry. No regrets. Deal with it)
posted by Floydd at 5:00 PM on March 14, 2022 [11 favorites]

I don't think I've ever heard the live Elvis version before—that wocka-chika guitar really sells it for me. And seriously, that Fine Young Cannibals cover is fantastic, I am so sad I've never heard it before today.

The Pet Shop Boys' Always On My Mind is my favorite version, every other cover sounds off for some reason.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 5:16 PM on March 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

the Paradise Lounge in Madison used to have a "no ooga-chaka" policy, they'd slap the kill button on the juke so fast from behind the bar

you could play twenty dollars worth of Slayer (in year 2000 prices) though & there was a guy who always did
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:37 AM on March 16, 2022

Came here for Suspicious Minds, stayed for Hooked On A Feeling. The B.J. Thomas and Blue Swede versions are so thoroughly lodged in my brain that I often conflate one version with the other.

Suspicious Minds is one of two Elvis songs I genuinely love (the other being Can't Help Falling In Love from his film Blue Hawaii, the soundtrack of which my mother played a lot when I was growing up).
posted by lhauser at 6:41 AM on March 16, 2022

Suspicious Minds is one of two Elvis songs I genuinely love

Might I suggest "Burnin' Love" or "A Little Less Conversation" (Official JXL Remix) as songs with a similar swagger.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:13 AM on March 16, 2022 [4 favorites]

The chorus version cracks me up. It looks like they're having a blast, good for them! But the idea that all of these people are caught in a trap and love some poor individual so much, baby...
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:47 PM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

I like ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ because it’s almost seventy years later and we’re still not sure if Elvis knew how queer it was, and ‘In the Ghetto,’ because he was trying so hard.
posted by box at 5:46 PM on March 18, 2022

The chorus version cracks me up.

"One or more of us are caught in a trap, they can't walk out, because they love their partners too much, baby." Doesn't quite have the same flow, though it pegs the empathy meter. Maybe arranging in 5/4 would be better.
posted by rhizome at 6:30 PM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Super late to the thread, but I feel like we should give a nod to Elvis Costello's quasi-medley of "Alison" and "Suspicious Minds", which he's performed at live shows on several occasions. There's a few videos on YouTube, but my personal favorite is from the 2005 Glastonbury Festival.
posted by skoosh at 9:27 AM on March 25, 2022 [1 favorite]