Elvis Presley – Never Been to Spain
1972
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Best comments
1.“If you don't have chills at the 1:09 mark of this song, check yourself into the morgue – because you're dead.”
More comments
- 2.“I think I speak for all UK citizens: we wish he'd been to England.”
- 3.“God was just showing off when he created this man... 'This is what I can do!'”
The story
Hoyt Axton wrote Never Been to Spain and put it on his own 1971 album, Joy to the World. Three Dog Night grabbed it, Cory Wells sang lead, and by February 1972 it was sitting at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. Elvis knew a good song when he heard one and worked it into his concert set soon after.
So here's the King in 1972, deep in the jumpsuit years, taking a wanderer's song about places he's only heard of and making it part of the show. The clip is labeled simply as 1972 live. That April, MGM filmed him singing it on tour for the documentary Elvis on Tour, which tied for the Golden Globe for Best Documentary – the only award any Elvis movie ever won. Martin Scorsese edited the film's montage, of all people.
The version most people own came two months later. RCA recorded his evening show at Madison Square Garden on June 10, 1972, billed as his first live concerts in New York since the 1950s, and rushed the album out about three weeks later. It went triple platinum. Not bad for a cover of a cover.
