The Loved Ones

Could be about him getting popular and having a reputation for being a little ornery. Of course the next time I hear this I will have completely changed my mind about the whole thing.

Elvis has said the song is poking fun at the artiste who sees himself as a tortured, misunderstood genius. Most of the lines are delivered by a more straightforward character, someone who sees right through him.

Elvis uses this disinterested observer to subject himself to off-the-cuff but deeply cutting self-parody: "You're not my particular poison/I've got nothing against you myself," followed by concern that the cerebral rocker's affected pose of despair could have represented a "danger to the boys and girls" who became fans. But he's fallen so far into disrepair (in both his career and personal life), he's become merely a "danger to [him]self."

It's definitely a song about what somebody else might say about him and his art (don't get sarcastic, spare us the verbal gymnastics). I once read that this song is about what his loved ones would say in the future looking back at where he was at the time he was writing the song. Now that's a "Through the looking glass" mind warp, isn't it?

So that's why my favorite part of the song is the last line, which he repeats a few times. Nobody writes letters anymore, but "PPS" stands for post postcript, or something you add at the end of a letter even after you've added "PS". Then he spells out "I love you".

I think he's adding a special message at the end of his song telling the people who love him, whenever in the future they should happen to listen to the song, that he loves them too. He loves them right here and now in this moment even if he's too sarcastic or too much of a tortured artist to say so. He's spelling it out, being coy, because he is too much of a complex case to say it outright. But he does love them. I actually think he's also saying he loves his fans, including me personally. I am touched.

Later on Elvis will go through phases where he does sing beautiful sincere uncomplicated love songs (my favorite is "Still" off his album "North"). But that's the best he could do at the time he wrote "The Loved Ones".

Let’s be real: it’s gobbledygook.

you are of course correct. "they stitched you up this time/they say you'll do..." he took quite a few beatings: not only in the press, but in the face also. after considerable provocation, as I'm sure most folks have already heard.

Foreverdrone got half the meaning of the song. EC has said the main point of the song is that there's nothing romantic about living the rock and roll lifestyle and dying young, because the only legacy the person can be sure of leaving when dead is the misery of the bereaved relatives ("they're the ones who have to bury the bastard").