“Mama Liked the Roses” by Elvis Presley

Credit: Wikipedia

When it comes to memorial music, it seems that The King is still one of the best around at crooning out heart-wrenching ballads that reach out and grab the soul. In his 1969 song, “Mama Liked the Roses,” Elvis’ gospel roots shine clear as he sings in remembrance of his mother, Gladys Love Presley, who passed away 11 years earlier due to a heart attack induced by liver complications.

The dulcet melody, combined with the lyrics, written by Christopher Johnny, that describe a broad array of tasks that many mothers perform in their daily lives culminate into an utterly relatable song that creates an instant feeling of nostalgia for all that your own parents may do for you.

Oh, mama liked the roses and when she had the time

She’d decorate the living room, for all us kids to see

When I hear the Sunday bells ringing in the morning

I remember crying when she used to sing

Oh, mama liked the roses but most of all she cared

About the way we learned to live And if we said our prayers

I myself, have probably heard this song dozens of times throughout my life, but its meaning only clicked into place for me recently as I listened to it with my own mother as we spent the day together baking Christmas cookies and remembering when we would bake together with my grandmother and other extended relatives in the years before. During these baking sessions, Elvis was often a featured player on several of our Christmas albums that we always played. One of the fringe benefits, it seems, for his thoroughly extensive fan base is that so many people can feel connected by the wide array of songs that he released during his career.

Although the extensiveness of Elvis’ fame has touched so many lives today, it turns out that it was also, very regrettably, a bane for his relationship with his own mother, whom he was incredibly close with. In part, because of how poor the Presleys were in Elvis’ youth, in coupling with the fact that he became the man of the house at the age of three, when his father was sent to prison, Elvis and his mother were nearly inseparable throughout most of his life. Above all, Gladys Presley was the most important woman in Elvis’ life and she was partly the reason that he thoroughly embraced his own success as a means of taking care of her, his father and many of his other family members. However, it was this very success that seems to have been the root of her own depression, as she had to resolve to sharing her beloved son with so many other fans and admirers.

In the end, it was this source of depression that ultimately led to her alcoholism and the contraction of hepatitis, which onset her death in 1958. That this song, among the many others that The King would dedicate to his mother, was recorded so late after her death is a testament to how strong his love for his mother was, and how grief can change a person for the rest of his or her own life.

Read the full lyrics here.

Listen to the full song here:

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