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'Crying in the Chapel' is an Elvis song! |
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In 1988 my recording studio "Kings Lane Studios" burnt down. It was a very distressing time but luckily we had insurance that replaced everything and in some cases improved upon the original (like with the leather couches!) For a brief moment of time it was the coolest studio, if not on earth, then certainly in Darlinghurst or at least the part of Darlinghurst north of Oxford Street. Incredibly, albeit briefly, The Golden Age of Kings Lane was probably after the fire. Peter Blakely, with his faithful engineer Chris Betro in tow, would commandeer the studio for days on end as he set about the slippery business of writing a hit song. |
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By the late eighties he had written and demoed five new songs at Kings Lane. The one that stood out for me was called, "You Must Climb Every Mountain", which was never heard of again. His favourite was a track called 'Crying in the Chapel'. I thought it sounded pretty good musically but …Crying in the Chapel ?…wasn't that an Elvis song? I'd been the bass player in Peter's rockabilly trio 'Rat Tat Tat' so I knew he had only recently emerged from an intense Elvis phase. I had to say, "You can't use the line, ' Crying in The Chapel', it's an Elvis song. You should change it to something original." (Maybe I hadn't heard of postmodernism.) I also told him I wasn't that crazy about the 'great big happy sunny day" line either. Obviously no one else agreed. It went all the way to number one, winning the A.R.I.A 'Single of the Year' award for 1989. This is the sad and ironic coda. One of the team involved in getting 'Crying in the Chapel' to the top of the charts was a rather irascible Englishman by the name of Mr. David Jarrett. He was in promotions at Warners at that time. David died in 2000 and at his funeral service they played 'Crying in the Chapel'. As Blakely's heavenly voice filled the room, there I was, crying in the chapel. How wrong can you get it ? |