The King & Eye (1989)
This album is a forerunner of the Cube E album and tour,
the third Baby King part featuring some of these tracks.
Here, the Residents tackle the music of Elvis, framed with
a narrative about "the baby who wanted to be king", as told
by the singing Resident, to a group of children. The tracks
vary in quality somewhat, perhaps because the album was
recorded at Different Fur as opposed to the Residents' own
studio. The rather subdued Teddy Bear here was blown up
into a growling monster by the time Cube E got underway.
There's a haunting Return To Sender though, and Burning
Love is quietly awesome. An amusing thing about their
deconstruction of the songs is the way the lyrics are
revealed to be pure country bumpkin almost to the point of
surrealism (especially Stuck On You and All Shook Up). The
superb crucified Elvis cover is by Rex Ray and not Pore No
Graphics for a change.
I don't think it's just the absence of the visual aspect,
as seen in the Cube E performances, which makes this album
seem rather lifeless. There seems to be very little passion
involved in most of the Elvis songs covered here. I'm not a
big Elvis fan to start with, and The Residents' versions
did little to convince me otherwise. One stand-out track
for me is His Latest Flame, where Mr X Indeed suddenly
appears to relate the sorry tale of Marie's duplicity, his
perfect drawl wonderfully counterpointed (just as in Gi3P)
by Laurie Amat.