Credit: Far Out / Public Domain / Library of Congress / BBC
Tue 8 September 2026 14:00, UK
Some songs are so heavily ingrained in the fabric of rock ‘n’ roll history that it’s easy to forget they ever had a backstory, and one of these is the 1956 Elvis Presley classic, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’.
Released the previous year by Carl Perkins, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ has one of the most misconstrued backstories in music history. For those who aren’t already familiar with it, it’s difficult to find the ‘real’ story, with different recollections emerging from a handful of sources, including Johnny Cash, Perkins himself, and Perkins’ drummer, who later vowed to set the story straight.
In Cash’s account, the idea for the song emerged when he was touring the South with Perkins and Elvis in 1955. One night, he allegedly told Perkins of a military airman who referred to his shoes as “blue suede shoes” and told Perkins he should write a song about it, who was reportedly baffled by the suggestion, unable to figure out how to write a song about shoes when he knows nothing about them.
In another version of the story, Perkins apparently got the idea for a song about blue suede shoes after meeting a couple of dancers, and the boy dancer repeatedly reprimanded his female dancing partner for stepping on his suede shoes, evidently more concerned about scuffing his footwear than his potential love interest.
Years later, in 2015, Perkins’ drummer, WS Holland, joked about the differing accounts and claimed to have the real story, reframing Cash as the central culprit for the entire idea, as he recounted, “I hear three or four different versions of nearly everything that happened back then. In 1955, we were all on the same booking agency, so the Cash and Perkins bands became really close buddies on tour.”
He explained, “This particular time, we were driving John’s green ’53 Plymouth in Arkansas, with Carl and John in the back. He propped his leg up on the back of the front seat and said, ‘Carl, we oughta write a song about some shoes’. A little bit further on, he went: ‘Why don’t we write it about some blue suede shoes?’”
A few days later, Perkins heard a dancer scold his partner about stepping on his shoes, and that night, he went away and wrote the song, which still begs the question of how and why it ended up in the hands of ‘The King’ himself, Elvis Presley. Well, given that Perkins had made history as the first country singer to score success in the mainstream pop and R&B circles, Presley’s label, RCA, wanted in on the fun and put out their own version in search of another hit following the success of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.
Further reading: From The Vault
Unfortunately for Perkins, he was injured in a car accident just as his version of the song rose to number one on the R&B and country charts, which was a major setback for him, especially as he felt like it was his first real chance at tasting real success, but then Presley swooped in and took all the glory; well, sort of. ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ wasn’t exactly Presley’s biggest hit, but it bolstered his broader image, turning Perkins’ R&B arrangement into something with a more forthcoming and raw rock ‘n’ roll energy.
And, according to Perkins, he never had a shot up against someone as fiery and appealing as Presley anyway. As he later said, the rock ‘n’ roll star “had everything. He had the looks, the moves, the manager, and the talent. He didn’t look like Mr Ed, like a lot of us did. Elvis was hitting them with sideburns, flashy clothes, and no ring on the finger. I had three kids.”
