About Back To Tupelo

[yontwocrows]

I think it's rather distance.

Free Dictionary
quite a ways (spoken)
= a long distance
We're quite a ways from the Mexican border here.

Use in context
Rose has been doing a little more shooting and running while starting to do some walk-through exercises with his teammates, but the actual practice is a different matter. "He's still a ways away from that, from the actual practice part," Thibodeau said after Sunday afternoon's practice. (ESPN Chicago)

Any americans to explain us in detail?

[Lestroid]

American, born in the South here.  My mother was from Memphis (Elvis's adult home) and my grandparents were from northern Mississippi (near Elvis's childhood home in Tupelo, Mississippi).  The phrase "a ways to go, back to Tupelo" just means that it is a long way back to Tupelo.  If a speaker from Mississippi said that that, they would mean traveling a long distance. However, in the song I think Mark has a double meaning, that going back to Tupelo is like going back in time.  A journey of the soul, rather than a physical journey.

MK has a wonderful way of using regional expressions to develop the characters in his songs.  The characters speak like a real person.  But then he often puts a twist on the phrase so that it can mean something else entirely.  Sometimes it has taken me years to understand the different layers of meaning in one of his songs.

[Love Expresso]

MK has a wonderful way of using regional expressions to develop the characters in his songs.  The characters speak like a real person.  But then he often puts a twist on the phrase so that it can mean something else entirely.  Sometimes it has taken me years to understand the different layers of meaning in one of his songs.

Exactly. And that's why I come up with this thread referring to a song from 2004. Also it got interesting to me again because Mark mentioned it together
with Gator Blood. Thanks for your reply!

LE

[yontwocrows]

Thanks Lestroid,
yes, i understand it exactly in that way and in both meanings. My world had crushed if Knopflerfan was right, because in that case everything I've thought would have been wrong. Puh!

I'm also very fascinated of the multiple layers in MK lyrics. They seem at first sight often simple but everytime you listen to a well known song you discover a new meaning, allusion or a new layer ("If this is goodbye" is an example where he himself revealed that he uses on purpose more than one layer).

[Lis]

The definition yontwocrows and Lestroid provided was spot on.  I will just add that to me, it also has a touch of further than you expect... or, deceivingly far. 

[yontwocrows]

I will just add that to me, it also has a touch of further than you expect... or, deceivingly far.

[nababo]

Just half a cent, not more, firstly to second yontwocrowns and lestroid on the meaning of the song. I am not an English speaker, so I would never be able to write with the perfect logic they used in this matter.

Then I must say I always understood the song was the voice of Elvis own conscience, just like Il grillo parlante in Pinocchio. It's Elvis himself looking at his past and telling some truths to his current version.

[Lestroid]

You are right Nababo. I listened to the song a couple of times on my drive this afternoon and yes, the narrator of the song seems to be a little voice inside of Elvis's head, telling him that he has traveled a long way from his roots and that perhaps he should return there. Alas, Elvis doesn't seem to have listened!

[Lis]

...Then I must say I always understood the song was the voice of Elvis own conscience, just like Il grillo parlante in Pinocchio. It's Elvis himself looking at his past and telling some truths to his current version.

[JF]

I know that Colonel Parker is somewhere in this song of course, but never really worked out where exacty.

I am not the right person to explain lyrics, but I think I recall reading in an MK itw that the song was from Parker's point of view.

I believe that Parker is speaking to Elvis, he says to him :"you have to do the movies because the songs alone are not enough"
he obliged Elvis to do movies as a "strategic-marketing" plan, while Elvis wanted to do only music I think 

[dmg]

I know that Colonel Parker is somewhere in this song of course, but never really worked out where exacty.

I am not the right person to explain lyrics, but I think I recall reading in an MK itw that the song was from Parker's point of view.

I believe that Parker is speaking to Elvis, he says to him :"you have to do the movies because the songs alone are not enough"
he obliged Elvis to do movies as a "strategic-marketing" plan, while Elvis wanted to do only music I think 

The 3rd verse sums Parker's opinion up pretty much:

"It isn't just the records
No, you must have Hollywood
The songs alone are not enough
That much is understood"

But of course he never got a decent film:

"The story lines they're giving you
Are just not ringing true"

And to indicate how far he's come from Tupelo (his roots), through the music and then all the way to Hollywood he uses the line.  I don't really see this as being meant as distance at all:

"It's ways to go
Back to Tupelo"

[Knopflerfan]

Totally agree with you DMG, in that it's not meant as distance at all.....

I think it means either literally one way or other to go or still plenty of room for improvement??
The jury's out....

Either way it's an MK masterpiece!!

[nababo]

I know that Colonel Parker is somewhere in this song of course, but never really worked out where exacty.

I am not the right person to explain lyrics, but I think I recall reading in an MK itw that the song was from Parker's point of view.

I believe that Parker is speaking to Elvis, he says to him :"you have to do the movies because the songs alone are not enough"
he obliged Elvis to do movies as a "strategic-marketing" plan, while Elvis wanted to do only music I think 

The 3rd verse sums Parker's opinion up pretty much:

"It isn't just the records
No, you must have Hollywood
The songs alone are not enough
That much is understood"

But of course he never got a decent film:

"The story lines they're giving you
Are just not ringing true"

And to indicate how far he's come from Tupelo (his roots), through the music and then all the way to Hollywood he uses the line.  I don't really see this as being meant as distance at all:

"It's ways to go
Back to Tupelo"

Well, I can't see much of Colonel's voice in it. It's a third party - I believe it's Elvis' conscience - looking from a distance to primarly Elvis, but also to both of them at sometimes ("you and the lying dutchman"). And when the narrator acknowledges that the movie plots "are just not ringing true", I don't think that Parker even bothered about it. He just wanted to sell his golden boy up and up, regardless the quality of the product they were involved in. For the same reason, when the lyrics go "sometimes there

[rosco]

Elvis came from an extremely poor background in the deep south of the US. The family really had nothing.
He was the first real rock star and kicked down the door for others to follow. He became huge very quickly under Col Tom Parkers guidance and at a young age. What happened to him had never been seen before; he was considered the devil, obscene and the main reason for juvenile deliquency all over America. He was attacked on all fronts from all quarters.
(His Sun Recordings before he hit big imo are some of the greatest music ever made and showed his true genius-compare those recordings to what was popular in the charts at the time!!!! it's like music from another planet)

Elvis was very grateful and hugely respectful of Parkers judgements and decisions,  because of his poor upbringing he was haunted by the fear that he would one day lose it all and go back to nothing. Before the making of Clambake in 1967 he had made the decision that once his movie contracts were up he was going back to live appearances and possibly the line of soon be back in Memphis is when he was more or less finished with the movies and had made one of the best albums of his career in 1969 From Elvis In Memphis and had recorded many more great songs at these sessions in Memphis. By the 70,s Elvis was standing up to the Colonel and just before he died, he was considering sacking Parker. By then Elvis was a complete mess due to prescription drug abuse.
I believe without Elvis there would have been no Beatles/Stones and many others that followed him.

Christ we could be listening to Perry Como/Bing Crosby type music without his impact.

[Hophead]

Thanks for the insight rosco! In looking back at the songs that Mark has written about Elvis..it's obvious what he thought of him..and how he loathed Parker for what he did to Elvis. Is it just me...or does anyone else here see a parallel between Elvis' career..and what Mark turned away from along his own path?    Mark wrote "Calling Elvis" in the waning years of DS ..perhaps he saw a bit of himself in Elvis' path of self-destruction...and decided to change direction before it was too late. At least Mark had the ability to change his career...Elvis probably realized too late just how self-centered Parker was.