When I Feel Your Velvet, I Can’t Help It

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In 1988, Weird Al released the album Even Worse as a rebound to the commercial and critical failure of Polka Party!. The album did the trick thanks to hit parodies like “Fat,” “I Think I’m A Clone Now,” and “Lasagna.” But, like so many of Weird Al’s albums, the true musical treasures can be found in the original songs.

For one, Yankovic’s second stab at Sting and The Police, Velvet Elvis, hits a main artery. It has everything you’d expect from any Police song: a tinge of reggae, blurred time signatures, and an over-inflated sense of self-importance. And, like Nathan Rabin (2020), I gained a renewed reverence for the song when I saw it performed live earlier this year. During the performance, Weird Al and his band “became the world’s greatest Police tribute act, only better, because they were playing a “Police” song written not by Sting but by someone more talented, and with a slightly better sense of humor about himself to boot” (p. 129).

But this song came back to my attention for another reason. In 2018, Kacey Musgraves released a song with the same name and, needless to say, it was more popular that Weird Al’s version of the song. Her album “Golden Hour” won both the CMA and Grammy for “Album of the Year.” Additionally, Musgraves contributed an Elvis cover to the soundtrack of the 2022 Elvis biopic. So, naturally, Elvis is on her mind.

Weird Al’s take on the titular object, which is a painting of The King on a velvet canvas, sometimes adorned with rhinestones, is more literal than Musgraves’. She adores the warmth and tackiness represented by a Velvet Elvis and uses it as a metaphor for a potential lover who may be a bit gaudy and embarrassing to some people, but they’re just right for her. She fantasizes:

I wanna show you off every evening
Go out with you in powder blue and tease my hair up high

And

Soft to the touch, feels like love
Knew it as soon as I felt it
You're my velvet Elvis, baby

Now, Here’s Where Things get Weird

Seeing a 30-year-old echo of this oddly specific song title led me to ask how many songs have this title? After all, Elvis is iconic and the words “Velvet Elvis” are a nice piece of assonance that can be easily made into melodic material, especially if the accent is on the first syllable of each word and the notes descend between the first and second syllable. One would think there may be just a few more.

No. There were no fewer than 33 distinct songs by 33 different artists out in the world about Elvis on velvet:

Thirty-three songs is too many to write about individually. And, honestly, not all these songs are worth very much attention. I listened to each song and am now utilizing my academic literature review skills to distill and summarize this phenomenon.

So, first, some general observations:

Only two songs predate Weird Al’s, each written and performed by punk bands. Pink Lincolns (1987) and Adrenalin O.D. (1986) both tell aggressive stories celebrating the procurement of a Velvet Elvis painting. And this makes total sense. Punk music, by definition, represents counter culture and embraces all things dissonant. So, the tautology between iconic glamour and bad taste fits nicely among the general punk aesthetic.

Next, the bulk of the songs are either country or punk and the eponymous piece of art is used as either an allegory or as an object in a larger story, often a narrator’s source of ironic pride. The odd part is that there’s no pattern after that. Those two distinctions exist independently of genre. For example, the punk group, Pink Lincolns and country/bluegrass group, Dick Twang Band both released songs about a literal Velvet Elvis in 1987 and 2009 respectively. And southern rock musician Daniel Markham and 90s punk group The Stray Cats both use a Velvet Elvis painting metaphorically - the latter using it as an unflattering symbol of cultural decay, as if a portrait of Elvis on velvet is the United States’ collective Dorian Gray.

Notably, the Stray Cats’ entry is the only song that treats a Velvet Elvis like a bad thing.

Everything else is some variation on the aforementioned patterns except for a few exceptions. There may be more, but the following outliers demonstrate what I consider “legitimately weird” credentials.

Velvet Elvis Outliers

The Electric Stars (2021)

This nine-minute track opens with a gospel-inspired organ solo and quickly moves into what sounds like Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” We then get to the meat of the song that shifts to a more straightforward dance rock. It’s a journey that feels both meandering and tight, mostly due to the lyrics not really following any particular pattern aside from what words seem to fit the melody. For example, there are references to politicians and “another joker in the White House, baby!” among the reassertion of what “is music.” But, the piano vamp holds the music together and gives it a sense of cohesiveness from beginning to end.

The perplexing part is how Velvet Elvis fits into the whole thing. This observation is not necessarily a negative critique, but a Velvet Elvis isn’t mentioned in the song until the very final refrain. But, this lyrical climax could tie the themes together and connect the audience to the idea of music as “solid gold” and “sonic candy” - two polemic phrases that can represent substance and shallowness respectively…like a Velvet Elvis painting.

Or, if we’re taking the Velvet Elvis as a deeper metaphor of a flawed king, and at the risk of reading too deep into it, the allusion to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” sets up The Electric Stars’ own tribute to their own hero who flamed out too young. Pink Floyd’s “crazy diamond” is actually Syd Barrett, who left the band in 1968 after, essentially, melting his brain with too much LSD and becoming too erratic for the increasingly popular progressive rock group. Similar to Barrett, drug abuse also cut Elvis’ career short.

Regardless of the depth of interpretation, the song is well constructed and definitely a bit weird. The fact that one can read this deeply into it shows the care and craftsmanship The Electric Stars put into their music.

Stir (2000)

Modestly successful alternative rock band, Stir’s, contribution is more baffling to me than anything. It’s a solid alternative rock song and the lyrics are quite good…until you realize they’re talking about a Velvet Elvis painting. In many of the other examples in the playlist, it’s clear that a Velvet Elvis is a humorously over-valued item (like in Weird Al’s, The Dick Twang Band’s, or Pink Lincoln’s songs) or a proxy for another adored thing (Kacey Musgraves’ song). But, I am not sure if they are performing this song with a wink or really taking themselves incredibly seriously - I’m talking Staind-levels of self-appointed and undeserved profoundness.

Not exactly Velvet, but just as tacky to have in your den.

Stir goes full-blown Christian Rock with their awe-struckness for a painting that offers the narrator redemption:

I touched my hand upon Elvis
Now I can't complain
I touched only felt on his canvas, and I'll do it again

And

Hey, hello, are you my only friend?
Because I'd love to hang with you someday

And

Sometimes we hear what's softly spoken yet still seem so afraid
And when we're healing all that's broken
We turn to you and say I think you're right where you belong

This song could still be a deep-fake where the narrator has a profound spiritual experience while staring at a picture of Elvis Presley on velvet as if it were a depiction of Jesus on the cross - a dense satire poking fun at Christian Rock tropes that ooze shallow sentimentality to the point of making spiritual redemption stories kitschy.

For one, the song is a sonic anomaly on an album called '“Holy Dogs.” Even the title track lacks a strong spiritual connection unless one generously interprets the line “The dogs will come with their mouths wide open to take me away” as an eschatological allusion to demons dragging the singer to Hell.

Also, the lyrics can be clumsily applied to Jesus on the cross, particularly the wordplay on the verb “hang” and assertions that Elvis on velvet, like Jesus on the cross, is “where he belongs,” as if both succumbed to their appropriate fates. These lyrics work for both figures and may have caused the narrator to realize that Elvis (Jesus) may be their “only friend.”

This thematic ambiguity makes this song a weird hidden gem on this album.

Alex Winston (2011)

This song is a stone-cold bop. I love it. It has this ethereal and nostalgic quality that sounds like it should be muzak in the background of a 1960s grocery store. And this aesthetic makes sense because the lyrics tell a story of the narrator’s sexual awakening at the behest of a Velvet Elvis painting. The song opens with the pixie-voiced Winston declaring:

Ma said, I ain't right
Clutching on you all night
But you're my, you're my guy, Elvis

And the chorus leaves little to the imagination:

When I feel your velvet, I can't help it
Hold your frame, whisper your name
When I feel your velvet, I can't help it
And you don't breathe, so you can't leave

Now, you might be thinking this is weird in a bad way, but it really isn’t. This song’s verses are meant to be nostalgic and Winston captures the wistful sexual realization perfectly. For people - like me - who grew up in the pre-internet era, anything remotely sexual in our world was fascinating and could easily become erotic to a young person who doesn’t understand all their emotions yet. Anecdotally, I remember being 14 or 15 and unable to get the Great Fairy from the N64’s Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time out of my head. Childhood obsessions with not-necessarily-erotic posters were also part of a 30 Rock joke about Liz Lemon’s adult sexual hang-ups (starts at 2:54).

The song’s ear-wormy chorus drops the juvenile vocal timbre to truly celebrate the narrator’s current understanding of that experience and brings the listener back to present time. Velvet Elvis still gives her an urge, but now she knows that it’s because it will always be there for her, unlike lovers who can breathe.

With the exception of the Stray Cats’ metaphor, a Velvet Elvis and whatever it’s supposed to represent is a lovable, kitschy piece of trash. It’s a contradiction that embodies how everybody needs a little trash in their lives and we shouldn’t shy away from what makes us happy. Wear that garish Hawaiian Shirt to work. Blast that terrible pop song on your speakers for all to hear. Practice that accordion. Cherish your weird.

Or don’t. It’s up to you to decide to whom you show your Velvet Elvis.