Hound Dog

Just-

So I was gonna do Elvis, Hound Dog.

I was gonna, I was thinking between Hound Dog and Blue Suede Shoes.

And I think Hound Dog is Big Mama Thornton.

Big Mama, mm-hmm, Big Mama Thornton.

Yeah.

Yakkity yak, yakkity yak.

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time.

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time.

Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine.

Well, they said you was high-classed.

Well, that was just a lie.

Yeah, you ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine.

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time.

And both sides of this single topped the pop and country charts.

Presley and a backing band performed Hound Dog eight weeks after its release on The Ed Sullivan Show.

He'd performed on national TV shows before, nine times in fact, but The Sullivan Show was bigger than any of the others, and the 60 million viewers who tuned in to watch him on September 9 made that Ed Sullivan episode the most watched U.S. TV broadcast up to that point.

But Presley biographer Peter Guralnik says the event almost didn't happen.

Its title became apparent with the second song he performed.

Presley performed two more songs that evening, including this cover of the then-new single by Little Richard.

But the number that he opened with was Hound Dog's Flipside, which was also riding high at the time.

Presley ended up appearing on The Sullivan Show three times at eight-week intervals, and he got paid $50,000.

This song was originally written for her to sing.

Let's check out Hound Dog.

Well, I feel all right this morning now I want everybody to know That I was the one to say You ain't nothing but a hound dog When it's moving on my door Well, snoop around my door You can wag your tail But I ain't gonna feed you no more You told me you was high class But I can see through that Yes, you told me you was high class But I can see through that You ain't no real cool cat.

You ain't nothing but an old hound dog.

Quit snooping around my door.

You ain't nothing but an old hound dog.

Quit snooping around my door.

Oh, shake it, but don't break it.

I imitated Elvis as a small child very well.

A six-year-old who could sing, you know, Hound Dog and Don't Be Cruel.

I was pretty good

at

It was produced by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, names that we should recognize.

They wrote and produced a ton of early rock and roll hits like Hound Dog, Stand By Me, Kansas City, and the list goes on and on and on.

So I would say The Magic Touch probably had something to do with the success of the song.

The song itself got a second life when Quentin Tarantino used it in the 1992 film Reservoir Dogs.