{"id":45088,"date":"2025-08-04T17:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T17:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45088\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T17:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T17:39:09","slug":"elvis-balked-about-recording-the-oversexed-burning-love-then-it-became-his-last-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45088\/","title":{"rendered":"Elvis balked about recording the oversexed ‘Burning Love.’ Then it became his last hit."},"content":{"rendered":"

By all objective measures, Elvis Presley<\/a> was a hunk, a hunk of burning love. But he clearly wasn\u2019t feeling it when he heard a demo of \u201cBurning Love\u201d<\/a> at RCA Hollywood Studios in March 1972.<\/p>\n

The song, a slightly shocking blend of the spiritual and sexual, seemed like a hit to those in the room, with its reverent, raunchy intro:<\/p>\n

Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising, mmm.Higher, higher, it’s burning through to my soul.Girl, girl, girl, girl, you’re gonna set me on fire.My brain is flaming, I don’t know which way to go, yeah.<\/p>\n

\u201cElvis didn\u2019t hate the song, he just wasn\u2019t in the mood for it,\u201d Jerry Schilling, Elvis\u2019 longtime friend who attended the session, tells USA TODAY.<\/p>\n

From Elvis to Michael Jackson: The biggest reveals in Lisa Marie Presley\u2019s memoir<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The cover of “Sunset Boulevard,” a new compilation of songs recorded by Elvis Presley in Los Angeles between 1970 and 1975.<\/p>\n

In the end, Presley reluctantly recorded the gospel-rock track, giving it his high-octane all: \u201cHe knew everyone felt that he should do it, he was a reasonable man,\u201d Schilling says. It became Elvis’ final Top 10 hit, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 that fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think Elvis was ever too thrilled about singing lyrics like ‘Flames are now licking my body,’ but he loved having a hit record,” Schilling, 83, writes in the introduction to “Sunset Boulevard,”<\/a> a new five-disc, 89-track collection that spans Presley\u2019s Los Angeles studio sessions from 1970 to 1975. (Schilling can be glimpsed in the set\u2019s archival images: \u201cI\u2019m very proud to be standing behind Elvis on the cover.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The set includes rare alternate takes \u2212 half of which have never been released in the U.S. \u2212 rehearsals for his Las Vegas residency, and new stripped-down mixes of classic Elvis cuts, including \u201cFor the Good Times,\u201d \u201cTiger Man,\u201d \u201cT-R-O-U-B-L-E,\u201d \u201cGreen, Green Grass of Home,\u201d \u201cPieces of My Life,\u201d \u201cMemories\u201d and \u201cSoftly As I Leave You.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of a purist, you know: Don\u2019t mess with Michelangelo\u2019s paintings or change the clouds. Don\u2019t mess with the artist,\u201d says Schilling, talking from his home in California, which Elvis gifted him in 1974. \u201cThere\u2019s a tremendous responsibility. When the big questions come up, I go, what would I do if Elvis was sitting next to me? That\u2019s how I judge it. I know my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer never shied away from the provocation of songs like \u201cBurning Love,\u201d Schilling adds. But in the early \u201870s, as Elvis privately struggled with his disintegrating marriage to Priscilla Presley<\/a>, he gravitated toward expressions of heartbreak and regret such as the autobiographical \u201cSeparate Ways\u201d and \u201cAlways on My Mind\u201d (both included in the set).<\/p>\n

Over time, he came to embrace the lusty song as part of his live repertoire, breaking it out months later for an epic \u201cAloha From Hawaii\u201d<\/a> performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a part of Elvis that wanted to be sexy,\u201d Schilling says. \u201cAnd there\u2019s a part of him that wanted to be a great gospel singer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cBurning Love,\u201d he got to be both.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elvis Presley wasn’t fond of ‘Burning Love.’ Then it became a hit.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By all objective measures, Elvis Presley was a hunk, a hunk of burning love. But he clearly wasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[31714,49,48,361,75,31712,31713,15431],"class_list":{"0":"post-45088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-burning-love","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-jerry-schilling","14":"tag-lisa-marie-presley","15":"tag-priscilla-presley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}