Song 185 - Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley

Some of my favourite Elvis tracks were made popular to me through other artists. Suspicious Minds was recorded by Fine Young Cannibals in the 1980s and I think this is the first time this song was brought to my attention.

Written by Mark James in the late 1960s, the song was given to Elvis in 1969 when James himself failed to create a commercial hit for himself. The song came to Elvis after his 1968 Comeback Special, after a period of hiatus, where his records had failed to reach the chart and his album Speedway had failed to break the top 70. The 1968 Come Back was a live concert recorded in June that year, which aired at Christmas. Although the music wasn't hitting the high note, Elvis' personal life was booming with the birth of Lisa-Marie, his only daughter. The 1968 Comeback Special opened up the opportunity for Elvis to record at the American Sound Studio in Memphis, which was where Mark James had been recording his material.

Elvis would lay down the track in January in 1969, and although there was initial hesitation on Mark's part that Elvis had made the track too slow, he was blown away by the final version.  Suspicious Minds is the first of two songs that had been written by Mark James, the second being Always On My Mind.  I bet Mark never realised at the time of writing the song that his conflicted feelings between his childhood sweetheart and first wife, would become the last number one for Elvis in the United States when it was released in the autumn of this year.

To hear Suspicious Minds 
Suspicious Minds, performed by Elvis

Written by: Mark James
Performed by: Elvis Presley
Album: From Elvis in Memphis