“Can’t Help Falling in Love” a cover by G-Dragon
On July 17, 2022, G-Dragon dropped his first new solo material since returning from his mandatory military enlistment: a cover of the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, recorded in support of the Asian promotional push for Baz Luhrmann’s new film, Elvis. I haven’t seen Elvis (although I’d like to, I just haven’t had time to get to the movie theater) but my impression is that it’s a retelling of Elvis’s biography through a contemporary lens--how we understand the Elvis mythos in 2022.
On my appearance on Money 4 Nothing, I spent a lot of time trying to get across the point that idols (for the most part) are not known primarily for their musical skills. That is certainly true of Elvis today. We think of Elvis having a distinctive voice and vocal style but there are a not insignificant number of people who think “Suspicion” by Terry Stafford is “Suspicion” by Elvis Presley. Elvis was a genuinely talented vocalist and performer but most of that has been washed away with time. What lives on in popular memory is the mythos, the fans, and the memorabilia. The paintings of Jesus and Elvis united together in heaven. The fan theories explaining how Elvis is the reincarnation of Jesus. The weeping fans still holding candlelight vigils on the anniversary of his death.
Velvet Elvis and Jesus in Heaven
Baz Luhrmann seems to be nodding at this by having contemporary artists record covers of Elvis’s songs for the soundtrack, rather than using original recordings from the King himself. Country singer Kacey Musgraves contributes a fairly traditional cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” for the official soundtrack. The video is set against what appears to be the crumbling of Elvis’s relationship with his wife, Pricilla, giving the song melancholy and even ironic overtones.
The King himself didn’t deal in irony or camp, despite how people have interpreted him. To the end of his life, in his own way, he was a good Christian boy who loved his mom.
It’s been a couple of decades since I went through my phase of reading Elvis biographies but one story lingers on in my memory. It was from one of the “Memphis Mafia”--the assorted men who hung around Elvis and acted as surrogate friends and lackeys--and he says he was out with Elvis in the desert outside of Las Vegas and Elvis turns to him and says something like, “Did you see that cloud move up there? I did that.” And he points to the sky. And the Memphis Mafioso is like, “Sure, Elvis.” And we can laugh at the ridiculousness but are you going to tell Elvis that he didn’t move that cloud? No, of course not. Did Elvis believe he moved the cloud? Did he want to believe he moved the cloud? Was he just fucking with his hangers on for fun? Did the story even happen at all? We can’t answer these questions in 2022.
Elvis is the closest equivalent to a domestic American idol as I think we’ll ever get. The mass weeping and celebration of Elvis, the icon, is noteworthy because it is unusual. There are not that many celebrities who cross every cultural demographic to become totems of the culture at large. In other places, in other cultures, the kind of spectacle you see at Graceland on an Elvis anniversary may be seen via the lens of Superstar Rajinikanth in Chennai or, yes, BigBang’s G-Dragon in Korea--a very appropriate addition to the Elvis soundtrack.
What I like about G-Dragon’s cover is that it doesn’t simply follow the original--or even Kacey’s more melancholy cover. He teases us with a Kacey-style introduction, lagging behind the beat in that Donnie Darko-esque way that’s become popular with contemporary singers when covering old songs as a way to sound more “authentic”... but then, and praise to our Lord G-Dragon, he kicks it up to a Sid Vicious “My Way” tempo (another apotheosized hero among a certain cultural set) and turning the song into a love letter to Elvis and, perhaps, to G-Dragon’s own celebrity image itself as the video mixes images of Elvis, the film, and G-Dragon into a whirlwind of footage. We really can’t help falling in love with them, with him.
