(429) HOUND DOG : THE LEIBER and STOLLER AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Christine here!


I've been wanting to read this book for a long time and finished it over the Labor Day weekend. It was edited wonderfully so that the conversational - story-telling quality was preserved and so the story moved at a good pace.


Of interest to the readers of WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC is the material on Elvis Presley, the effects of the British Invasion on songwriters in the mid 1960's, and the Brill Building New York scene and their LA-New York bicoastal music business. Of course the title HOUND DOG is also the name of their song that was recorded by Big Mama Thornton but which Elvis Presley broke out with, and which put this song writing due into early fame.

An excerpt from the book from pages 93 and 94!


Leiber: ..."As for the amazing fact that Elvis had recorded "Hound Dog," well, I had different feelings. The first feeling is the one that washes over any songwriter when he learns he has a hit: He hears the cash register ring and the Sale! sign come up. That's a good feeling. But when I heard Elvis' version, I had a bad feeling. I didn't like the way he did it. Somebody changed the lyrics. I had written:


You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Quit snooping 'round my door
You can wag your tail,
But I ain't gonna feed you no more

But Elvis sang:

You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Crying all the time
You ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine


To this day I have no idea what the rabbit business is all about. The song is not about a dog; it's about a man, a freeloading gigolo. Elvis's version makes no sense to me, and even more irritatingly, it is not the song that Mike and I wrote. Of course, the fact that it sold more than seven million copies took the sting our of what seemed to be a capricious chance of lyrics. But, lick for lick, there's no comparison between the Presley version and the Big Mama original. Elvis played with the song; Bib Mama nailed it."


HOUND DOG : THE LEIBER and STOLLER AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with David Ritz Copyright 2009
Simon and Shuster Publishers