off the Jungle Room · through the back · mind the carpet
Behind the Jungle Room · the other Jungle Room
The Den
He did not go to the studio. The studio came into the den.
Green shag on the floor. Carved wood, fake fur, a waterfall of cut fieldstone on the north wall, and a jade lamp on either side of it. In 1976 somebody rolled recording equipment into this room, and the last two Elvis Presley albums came out of it.
The room, and then the records
Graceland has a den that Elvis Presley filled with Polynesian furniture after Blue Hawaii — carved wood, fur over the seats, plants, coloured glass, and an indoor waterfall of cut field stone on the north wall. People have been rude about it for fifty years. It is one of the great rooms.
And then in 1976 it was turned into a recording studio, and the bulk of his final two albums were made in it: From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee, out that May, and Moody Blue, out in July 1977. Felton Jarvis produced. The band was the touring band — James Burton, Ron Tutt, Jerry Scheff, Glen D. Hardin, John Wilkinson, Charlie Hodge, David Briggs — with J.D. Sumner & The Stamps, Kathy Westmoreland and Myrna Smith singing. They played it live in a room with the furniture still in it.
That is the whole reason this is a room and not a link. A shag carpet is a joke; a discography made on top of one is a listening bench. The sixteen cuts below are in the order they were recorded, with the night each one was cut, and none of them is an outtake — the takes are out there on the same official channels and are not what came out on the records.
2–7 February 1976
February 1976
The first week. Ten of these went on From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee, out that May; two waited for Moody Blue.
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Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall
Written by Larry Gatlin · cut 2 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
The first thing cut in the room, on the first night. A Larry Gatlin song about a fall, opening a record made in a house.
Runs 3:17 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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She Thinks I Still Care
Written by Dickey Lee and Steve Duffy · cut 2 February 1976 · Moody Blue
A George Jones standard, taken slow. Held back for a year and a half and then put on the last album.
Runs 3:51 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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The Last Farewell
Written by Roger Whittaker and Ron A. Webster · cut 2 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
Four minutes, and nothing hurried in any of them. The room was a living room an hour earlier and it sounds like one.
Runs 4:03 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Solitaire
Written by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody · cut 3 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
Sedaka and Cody's song about a man playing cards alone, sung by a man who had stopped leaving the house to make records.
Runs 4:40 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Moody Blue
Written by Mark James · cut 4 February 1976 · Moody Blue
The one that gave the last album its name, and the only thing in this room with a disco pulse under it. Released as a single that November.
Runs 2:53 · on YouTube, via ElvisPresleyVEVO. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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I'll Never Fall in Love Again
Written by Lonnie Donegan and Jimmy Currie · cut 4 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
Donegan's, not Bacharach and David's — two different songs with the same title, and this is the skiffle one.
Runs 3:45 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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For the Heart
Written by Dennis Linde · cut 5 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
By the man who wrote Burning Love. The band is the touring band, playing in a carpeted room with the furniture still in it.
Runs 3:23 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Hurt
Written by Jimmie Crane and Al Jacobs · cut 5 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
Two minutes and seven seconds, and the loudest thing anybody did in that room. A 1954 song he had been carrying around for twenty years.
Runs 2:07 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Danny Boy
Written by Frederic E. Weatherly · cut 5 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
A parlour song from 1913, sung in a parlour. Of everything here this is the one that most obviously belongs in a house.
Runs 3:56 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Never Again
Written by Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Chesnut · cut 6 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
Short, plain, and over before it has made a fuss about itself.
Runs 2:51 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Love Coming Down
Written by Jerry Chesnut · cut 6 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
The second Chesnut song of the same night, and the quieter of the two.
Runs 3:07 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
Written by Fred Rose · cut 7 February 1976 · From Elvis Presley Boulevard
Fred Rose wrote it in 1945; Willie Nelson had made it a number one the year before this was cut. The last thing recorded in the February week.
Runs 3:42 · on YouTube, via Elvis Presley - Topic. Nothing of it is hosted here.
29–31 October 1976
October 1976
Three nights, eight months later, in the same room. Everything from them went on Moody Blue — the album he did not live to see released.
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Way Down
Written by Layng Martine Jr. · cut 29 October 1976 · Moody Blue
Released as a single on 6 June 1977 and the last one out in his lifetime. J.D. Sumner goes lower on this than anybody needed him to, which is the point of it.
Runs 2:38 · on YouTube, via ElvisPresleyVEVO. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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Pledging My Love
Written by Don Robey and Ferdinand Washington · cut 29 October 1976 · Moody Blue
Johnny Ace's 1954 record, which came out after Ace had died. Cut here in a den with a waterfall in it.
Runs 2:56 · on YouTube, via ElvisPresleyVEVO. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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It's Easy for You
Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice · cut 29 October 1976 · Moody Blue
Lloyd Webber and Rice, which is not a credit anybody expects to find on an Elvis record, let alone this one.
Runs 3:31 · on YouTube, via ElvisPresleyVEVO. Nothing of it is hosted here.
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He'll Have to Go
Written by Joe Allison and Audrey Allison · cut 31 October 1976 · Moody Blue
Jim Reeves' song, taken very slow indeed. The last thing on this bench, and the last studio session of his life.
Runs 4:36 · on YouTube, via ElvisPresleyVEVO. Nothing of it is hosted here.
House rules, in here
- Nothing plays until you press play. Every one of those is a button, not a video. Until you press one this page has asked YouTube for nothing on your behalf — no iframe, no cookie, no request. Press one and exactly one becomes a song.
- Every button says how long it runs. Which is the rule the room you came through cannot follow, because a live camera never ends. These are songs with a length, so withholding it would be keeping back the one fact that lets you decide. The two generators enforce opposite checks and are making the same promise.
- The vibe, not the lyrics. Same rule as the dancefloor and the chapel. We name the artist, we link the song, and we let them keep their own words. And we name the people who wrote them, because Elvis Presley wrote none of these and a room that credited only the voice would be doing the exact thing this site keeps attribution for.
- Nothing is hosted here. Not one second of audio. Every button is a facade that points at Presley’s own official channels — the estate’s art-track channel and his VEVO — and the recordings stay where their owners put them.
- This room is not the room upstairs. Both are called the Jungle Room and both are green, and that is where it stops. Up there the green is the darkness and the light falls from above; down here the room is brown, the carpet is the brightest thing in it, and the list is set dark on the green. Same colour, opposite job.
Who made this noise
The songs are Elvis Presley’s recordings and the songwriters’ compositions; the writers are named on every cut above and again in the liner notes. Neither the Presley estate, Graceland, RCA nor any of the writers is affiliated with Stimpunks and none of them endorses us. The track list, the session dates and the album attributions came off the two albums’ own articles; every video id was resolved against YouTube and then checked on its own watch page before it went in. Nothing here is hosted by us. The room around them is ours: Stimpunks Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0.
HOW LOUD DO YOU WANT IT?
Starts wherever your device says. Nothing moves, flashes, or plays until you say so — and in here, MAX GLITTER is the waterfall.