History:
As Elvis Presley went, so went the nation. Or vice versa. For two decades, the country beloved by its King more or less matched its mood, and 1972 proved to be no exception: while America was slowly starting to put out the fires of its generational upheaval and get back to work, Presley himself reacted to the loss of Priscilla by throwing himself into touring -- often to the detriment of his recording career, his personal life, and his rightful place on the charts. This wasn't the Colonel's doing, or America's, it was Elvis'. As long as he could maintain the bubble he lived in, he saw no reason to leave it.That didn't mean he was emotionally numb, just distant. Elvis only attended one three-day session in the whole of '72, and it spoke volumes: the songs he chose to cover then (and, later, in his stage show) directly reflected his loss -- if not his culpability -- in ways that his music never had before. Elvis may have been growing up in public, but if so, he was doing it behind a wall. Indeed, he had to be talked into recording his biggest hit in two years, the scorcher "Burning Love," ostensibly because it didn't reflect his mood at the time. Elvis most certainly did not feel like a hunka hunka sexual energy, just an increasingly lost human being who seemed to rapidly be forgetting who he was or, more importantly, what it was all for. Yet the gravy train kept right on rolling.
Next... Elvis 1972 timeline
