“Carl Perkins Wrote This Song.” — The Night Elvis Put The Weight Down.
On January 1st, 1956, Carl Perkins sat in a chair in Jackson, Tennessee and wrote a song in 20 minutes. It was called Blue Suede Shoes. He had been thinking about it since the previous summer, since a night at a dance when he had watched a young man correct his date for accidentally scuffing his shoes.
The image had stayed with him. The specificity of it, the vanity, and the humor, and the humanity of a man who cared more about his shoes than almost anything else. Carl recorded the song at Sun Studio in December 1955. Sam Phillips released it on January 1st, 1956. By February, it was number one on the country chart.
By March, it was number one on the rhythm and blues chart. By April, it was number two on the pop chart, kept from number one only by Heartbreak Hotel. Heartbreak Hotel was by Elvis Presley. Carl Perkins had written the song that could have made him the most famous person in American music. He had recorded it first.
He had charted with it first. And then on March 22nd, 1956, while Carl was in a hospital in Delaware recovering from a car accident that had nearly killed him, Elvis Presley appeared on the Milton Berle Show and performed Blue Suede Shoes. Not as a cover, as a performance with the specific physical electricity that Elvis brought to everything he performed to an audience of 30 million Americans who had never heard the song before.
Carl Perkins learned about it from a hospital bed. He did not find out from a phone call or a telegram. He found out because someone brought a newspaper into his room because the performance was news. His road manager, W.S. Holland, was with him in the hospital. He described Carl’s face when he saw the headline.
“He went very still,” W.S. Holland said. “The way a man goes still when he’s deciding something.” Carl read the article. He read every word. W.S. Holland waited. When Carl finished reading, he set the newspaper on the bed. He looked at the ceiling. Then he said something that W.S. Holland repeated in every interview he gave for the rest of his life.
“He’s going to make it the biggest song in the world,” Carl said. W.S. Holland asked if he was upset. Carl was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know yet,” he said. The accident had broken Carl’s shoulder and fractured his skull. He was in the hospital for weeks. By the time he was well enough to perform again, Elvis’s version of Blue Suede Shoes had outsold his.
Not marginally. Significantly. The song that Carl had written in 20 minutes on New Year’s Day, the song that was supposed to be his, had become in the public imagination an Elvis song. Carl Perkins never discussed this publicly for several years. He performed the song. He recorded other music. He built a career that was respected and substantial and permanently overshadowed.
Then in 1961 at a music industry event in Nashville, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley were in the same room for the first time since the song. Carl described this meeting in a long interview he gave to journalist Peter Guralnick in 1979. He said that when Elvis saw him across the room, Elvis came toward him immediately.
Not with the careful managed approach of a man navigating a professional situation, directly with a quality that Carl described as urgency. Elvis took his hand. He said, “Carl, I owe you.” Carl told Guralnick. Carl said he didn’t know what to say. “I owe you that song.” Elvis said. “I knew what I was doing.
I knew it was yours.” Carl looked at him. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure people know it.” Elvis said. Carl described his reaction. He said he hadn’t expected this. He said he had spent five years carrying the weight of the thing quietly and hadn’t known he was carrying it until Elvis named it.
“I told him it was all right.” Carl said. “I told him the song reached more people because of him. And that was true. But he shook his head.” Carl said. “He said, ‘It should have been yours.'” For For next 16 years, until Elvis’ death in 1977, Elvis Presley consistently, publicly, and specifically credited Carl Perkins as the writer and original performer of Blue Suede Shoes.
In interviews, on stage, where he would sometimes stop between verses to say, “Carl Perkins wrote this.” In conversations with journalists who asked about his influences, not all performers did this with the songs they covered. Many did not. Elvis did it every time. Carl Perkins described a specific moment from 1973.
Elvis was performing in Nashville. Carl was in the audience. He had not told Elvis he was coming. When Elvis played Blue Suede Shoes, he stopped halfway through. He shielded his eyes against the lights. He looked into the audience. “Carl Perkins wrote this song.” Elvis said into the microphone. “And I know he’s in this room tonight.
” “Carl, stand up.” Carl stood up. 10,000 people turned to look at him. “Ladies and gentlemen.” Elvis said. “The man who wrote it.” Carl described what it felt like. “I’d been carrying it for 17 years.” He said. “The weight of that song. And in 30 seconds, he put it down for me.” Carl Perkins died on January 19th, 1998.
He was 65 years old. In the interview with Peter Guralnick, which remains one of the most candid accounts of the Sun Records era. Carl was asked what he thought of Elvis. He was quiet for a long time. “He took my song,” Carl said. “And he made it immortal. I’m not sure I could have done that.” He paused.
“And he knew it was mine,” Carl said. “He never let me forget that he knew. That’s rarer than you think.”
