About The Song
I Try to Think About Elvis reached country radio on July 30, 1994 as the lead single from Patty Loveless’s album When Fallen Angels Fly. Gary Burr wrote the song. Emory Gordy Jr. produced the recording, which took place on January 27, 1994. Epic Records issued it with “Ships” on the B-side. The album version lasts 2:51; the radio edit runs 2:44.
The single spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and peaked at number 3 for the week of October 22, 1994. It reached number 12 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada and number 15 on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100. At year’s end it stood at number 29 among country songs in the United States.
Burr got the title from a radio DJ. The United States Postal Service was preparing an Elvis Presley commemorative stamp and stations were arguing over which image of Elvis should appear. One announcer said something close to “I try to think about Elvis” while describing the black-leather look from the 1968 comeback special. The phrase stuck. Burr went upstairs and wrote the song around it. He later said he liked titles that make a listener ask what the song is actually about.
The first draft leaned heavily male. It contained references to handguns, red meat, home runs and similar details. When the song was pitched to Loveless, those lines were judged unsuitable. Burr rewrote the verses, swapping in high heels, hairdos, tattoos, talk shows and Oprah. He kept the central idea intact: a person tries every distraction available and still cannot stop thinking about one particular someone.
In the finished version the singer apologizes for losing her place, then runs through a rapid list of subjects—Elvis, Memphis, Oprah in the afternoon, palm trees, fig leaves, the Rolling Stones, freight trains, street crimes, the cosmos. None of it works. The mind keeps returning to the same person. The chorus states the problem plainly: the mind wanders where it will, yet the only lasting thought is the one she is trying to avoid.
John Lloyd Miller directed the music video, which appeared in mid-1994. It places Loveless on sets that echo the lyric, including a talk-show stage. When the clip aired on CMT the on-screen credit sometimes shortened the title to “Think About Elvis.”
Larry Flick of Billboard noted that the rapid-fire name-dropping felt gimmicky for an artist known for more traditional material, yet he praised the vocal performance. The single still became one of the four top-ten country hits drawn from When Fallen Angels Fly, an album that reached the top ten of the country albums chart and later earned platinum certification.
American Aquarium recorded a version for their 2021 collection Slappers, Bangers, and Certified Twangers: Vol 1. The original continues to turn up on Loveless retrospective packages. Its lasting appeal rests on a simple, recognizable failure: the harder the mind works to think about anything else, the more it circles back to the one subject it is trying to escape.
Video
Lyric
Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot where I was
One, two, three, four
I try to think about Elvis, Memphis
Oprah in the afternoon
I try to think about palm trees, fig leaves
The creature from the Black Lagoon
I try to think about high heels and good deals
Anything to get me through
I just can’t concentrate
You’re all I think about these days
I try to contemplate the cosmos
And what goes ’round and ’round the sky at night
I try to think about the champagne, freight trains
Slowly rolling out of sight
I try to focus on the headlines, the street crimes
Every time I think I might
I just can’t concentrate
You’re all I think about these days
My mind wanders where it will
And when it settles right on you
I forget what I should say
I forget what I should do
My mind wanders where it will
And when it settles right on you
I forget what I should say
I forget what I should do
Come on, Patty, get it together
I try to think about Shakespeare, leap year
The Beatles or the Rolling Stones
I try to think about hair-do’s, tattoos
Sushi bars and saxophones
I try to think about the talk shows, new clothes
But I guess I should have known
I just can’t concentrate
You’re all I think about these days
You’re all I think about these days