{"id":84981,"date":"2015-04-21T16:44:09","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T20:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84981"},"modified":"2015-04-21T17:30:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T21:30:09","slug":"conspiracy-theories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/21\/conspiracy-theories\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracy Theories"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"presleyelvis-teddyed\"<\/a>

From the cover of the \u201c(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear\u201d single.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. \u2014Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201c(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear<\/a>\u201d topped the charts for seven weeks in the summer of 1957. It was from the sound track to Elvis Presley\u2019s second film, the vaguely autobiographical\u00a0Loving You,\u00a0<\/em>in which the King plays a delivery-guy-turned-singing-sensation who engages the affections of Dolores Hart, better known as the starlet who left Hollywood to become a Benedictine nun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, everyone knows\u00a0\u201c(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear\u201d is kind of odd, with its BDSM undertones and its arbitrary hierarchy of animals\u2014what\u2019s wrong with lions? Plus there\u2019s the one-is-not-like-the-others aspect of it: Elvis sings of a toy teddy bear in a menagerie of otherwise live animals. But the strangest thing about it is the characterization of teddy bears themselves: <\/p>\n

\n

Oh baby let me be your lovin\u2019 teddy bear
Put a chain around my neck
And lead me anywhere
Oh let me be your lovin\u2019 teddy bear<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Okay, I don\u2019t want to speak for Elvis\u2019s native Mississippi\u2014or, for that matter, early twentieth-century Philly, from which the two songwriters hail\u2014but where I come from, we don\u2019t play with our teddy bears by chaining and dragging them around. We cuddle them. What Elvis is describing here sounds less like the plush toy inspired by Theodore Roosevelt and more like a dancing bear being tortured cruelly in a town square.<\/p>\n

If it is, indeed, a teddy bear that Elvis has in mind, chaining and leading it is a worrisome proposition. And if it\u2019s a live bear, then cuddling it in bed is an alarming proposal, too. Either way, Elvis is advocating for behavior that one would hardly encourage in one\u2019s small child or teenage daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But maybe Elvis, the cuddling-obsessed man-child, had never actually experienced the comforts of a teddy bear when he was young. Maybe he just \u2026 didn\u2019t understand what they were, how they were used. After all, a teddy bear doesn\u2019t have \u201chair\u201d so much as \u201cfur,\u201d which is kind of a giveaway in itself\u2014he\u2019s like a medieval artist attempting to portray a lion based on reports from distant lands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, legends and rumors about the King are notoriously rampant. But according to one dubious source<\/a>,\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

During his first few nights in an army bunk, Elvis slept with his teddy bear clutched close, a major U.S. newspaper reported in 1958. \u201cThe incident caused such a furor around the camp that the commanding officer had to order Elvis to do away with his furry friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No report on whether Elvis had any encounters with dancing bears. But this we do know: the modern Haribo gummy bear was introduced to Germany in 1960. Before that, it had been called a Teddy Bear. And at its inception? The Dancing Bear.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. \u2014Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary \u201c(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear\u201d topped the charts for seven weeks in the summer of 1957. It was from the sound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[7535,17848,8380,17847,13106,17845,13487,7536,17846],"class_list":["post-84981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-bears","tag-dancing-bear","tag-elvis-presley","tag-gummy-bears","tag-lyrics","tag-sm","tag-songs","tag-teddy-bears","tag-the-king"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn Elvis and Teddy Bears<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The King\u2019s \u201c(Let Me Be) Your Teddy Bear\u201d is one of his strangest songs. 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