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Crawfish
Words & Music:
Fred Wise/ Ben WeismanCrawfish
Well I went to the bayou just last night
There was no moon but the stars were bright
Put a big long hook on a big long pole
And I pulled Mr. Crawfish out of his hole
Crawfish
See I got him, see the size
Stripped and cleaned before your eyes
Sweet meat look, fresh and ready to cook
Crawfish
Now take Mr. Crawfish in your hand
He's gonna look good in your frying pan
If you fry him crisp or you boil him right
He'll be sweeter than sugar when you take a bite
Crawfish Recorded:
1958/01/15, first released on
EPReactions
It's funny too hear Elvis do a song about crawfish, when he realy detested seafood. Is Elvis' version the first of this song, because the Jesse Stone instrumental also sounds pretty old. A real gem.
This is such a terrific and unique Elvis song and the best version of it is definitely the version from the movie "King Creole". I like the album version too, but the movie version is vastly superior.
I remember a music critic touting this as one of Elvis' top 10 tunes. I certainly think it is one of his finest and most unique songs and from a movie with so many good songs, tends to be forgotten. Yes it is right up there because it is different and showed how Elvis was ever gowing as a recording artist in the 50's, a growth that stopped soon after the 60's soundtracks took over.
Too bad we never got some binaural versions of all that great sessions: like Love Me Tender, Loving You and Jailhouse Rock. Why is it so? FTD is today blocked by the missing outtakes of the masters, except King Creole. Maybe they were dumped in the "save spance operation" RCA did around 1959 as Ernst sadly discovered while looking for missing tapes. The long version of Crawfish we got in Essential Volume 3, remains to be released upgraded on a final Classic FTD yet to come.
A great track for the opening scene of "King Creole" and it is sung with a lot of heart and soul, but I would not consider it a great track when listening to it on the record. I always thought that this track along with "Steadfast, Loyal and True" slowed (brought down) down the B-side of the LP. 3 stars from me.
Love it. In the 50's everything he sang had heart & soul to it, even a situational movie song like this. Somehow that soul was lost as the mid-60's approached. If this was recorded in 1966 instead, I think it would have been a disaster.
I Like this song a lot. The duet in the movie is awesome!
Love the song, especially the long version.
Available Alternate Versions