In June of 1968 Elvis recorded his hit NBC special "Elvis" (aka The 68' Comeback Special). The show was originally supposed to be dominantly Christmas Songs and was supposed to have "I'll Be Home For Christmas" as the finale. Earl Brown was asked to write a song to replace ''Ill Be Home For Christmas" and he came up with "If I Can Dream". Clad in a total white suit and a red tie, Elvis sang "If I Can Dream" as the grand finale of his NBC Special. You can clearly hear Elvis singing his heart out on the song. It was then first released as single If I Can Dream/Edge Of Reality in November 1968. It peaked on Billboard's Hot 100 at #12 for 13 weeks, one million plus sales. This personally one of my favorite Elvis songs and it defiantly is in my top performances of his. I searched the longest time for Elvis singing this song live or during a concert only to find out that he never performed it in that manner. "If I Can Dream" was one of the dearest songs to Elvis because it was written as an inspirational song in a time soon after the assasinations of RFK and Martin Luther King Jr. Although Elvis thought very highly of this song, Col. Tom Parker refused to let Elvis sing it live because he considered it to be too controversial and didnt want Elvis to be considered a hippy.
1 comment:
Parker did not want Elvis to sing it in the special for sure. Many reasons behind that, but it had to do with the time of the special as well with what all was going on. Parker never said he could not perform it as part of his act. Elvis simply chose not to.
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