PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (21)
By:
September 12, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Country Music of the Fifties (1954–1963)! Series edited by Josh Glenn. Qobuz playlist here.
ELVIS PRESLEY | BLACK STAR / FLAMING STAR | 1960/1961
Elvis had a stillborn twin, and “Black Star” was one too. Literally a shadow song, “Black Star” was the unreleased original of “Flaming Star”, theme to the movie of same name when its title changed.
That duality matched the movie’s trope of Elvis being a mixed-race Kiowa in the Old West, torn between two societies, which mirrored his public perception as bestriding White and Black culture (with, of course, the cultures of color not present in these conversations).
Officially released 14 years past his death, “Black Star” takes on the tone of premonition, and listened to side-by-side its sunny substitute only makes the darkness stand out. The original is about an omen that hovers over the singer’s every move, a reminder of mortality hanging in the sky; “When I ride I feel that black star/That black star over my shoulder/So I ride in front of that black star/Never lookin’ around, never lookin’ around”.
The second take changes only the title phrase, making the “flaming star” sound like a fire spurring you on rather than a shadow closing in on you, but the brighter motivation is not very convincing in context. “Flaming Star” is jaunty where “Black Star” is haunting; the remake’s instrumental track is punchy while the original’s recedes like a fading memory, its wheezing accordion like the last gasp of a ghost; at the same time Elvis sings for his life on the original while going through the motions on the remake, even leaving his closing falsetto swoop to the less-ambitious backing group. (The remake also seems to bump up the drums to accentuate a vague faux-Native rhythmic signature, another drawback.)
I’ve heard it said that, when he returned from military service and was asked what he’d do once things got back to normal, Elvis answered, “When things get back to normal I’ll be drivin’ a truck,” and between “Black Star” and “Flaming Star” his heart is much more in the scary version, sensing the stakes of his precarious pinnacle and welcoming the race against his fate.
Riding the rim of possibility, he seems to be seeing both backward and ahead on the continuum of hard-luck loner icons; when he sings “Black star don’t shine on me/Black star keep behind me” we could be hearing Springsteen praying “Mister state trooper, please don’t stop me” two decades (or to “Black Star”’s cowboy character, a century) later.
It was a publicity still from Flaming Star that Warhol turned into his images of repeated off-register Elvises, twinned and triplet-ed like multiversal variants, and with every move Elvis made we seemed to watch him tumble down a parallel timeline (the former truckdriver ascended to definitive mega-celebrity, the dangerous rebel remade as domesticated entertainer), leaving epic might-have-beens. The darkest of these is the common impression that he “should have” died younger, his edge and promise intact like his own loner hero James Dean. In the rare case and refracted history of the Black and Flaming Star, we get to see where both his futures lead.
PATSY YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn. Nadine Hubbs on Marty Robbins’ EL PASO | Elizabeth Nelson on Dave Dudley’s SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD | Lynn Peril on Jean Chapel’s WELCOME TO THE CLUB | David Cantwell on Porter Wagoner’s MY BONFIRE | Will Hermes on Johnny Cash’s RING OF FIRE | Mimi Lipson on Loretta Lynn’s I’M A HONKY TONK GIRL | Charles Hughes on Roger Miller’s YOU DON’T WANT MY LOVE | Eric Weisbard on Lefty Frizzell’s THE LONG BLACK VEIL | Steacy Easton on Jean Shepard’s A SATISFIED MIND | Josh Glenn on Johnny Cash’s THE REBEL — JOHNNY YUMA | Carlo Rotella on Buck Owens’ CLOSE UP THE HONKY TONKS | Annie Nocenti on Patsy Cline’s THREE CIGARETTES IN AN ASHTRAY | Douglas Wolk on Lucky Starr’s I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE | Will Groff on Ray Price’s NIGHT LIFE | Jonny Auping on Willie Nelson’s CRAZY | Brian Berger on Ernest Tubb’s THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS | Jason Grote on Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys’ DARK HOLLOW | Peter Doyle on Willie Nelson’s FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY | Sam Glenn on Johnny Cash’s BIG RIVER | Mark Richardson on Elvis Presley’s BLUE MOON | Adam McGovern on Elvis Presley’s BLACK STAR / FLAMING STAR | Chris Spurgeon on Ricky Nelson’s BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY | Stephen Thomas Erlewine on George Jones’ WHITE LIGHTNING | Devin McKinney on George Hamilton IV’s ABILENE | Annie Zaleski on Patsy Cline’s WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT.
ALSO SEE: DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25 of our favorite Country records from 1964–1973) | & more Country at HILOBROW, including short appreciations of Gene Pitney, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Buck Owens, George Jones, June Carter Cash, Charley Pride, and many others.
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