A Nursery Rhyme Helped Carl Perkins Write 'Blue Suede Shoes'
- edgarstreetbooks
- May 16
- 3 min read
‘100 Greatest 50s Rock, Pop & Doo Wop Songs’ Book Excerpt
Frank Mastropolo
Carl Perkins released “Blue Suede Shoes” in early 1956. The early rockabilly tune reached №2. Elvis Presley released his uptempo version in September 1956, a №20 hit. While varying accounts exist, Perkins described the song’s inspiration on NPR in 1996.
“It was October the 21st, 1955. I was playing what we called back in those days a honky-tonk, where people get together and scream and holler and dance and have a good time. And I had not owned a pair of blue suede shoes at this point. I’d seen a few of them around my hometown in Jackson, Tennessee.
“But at the end of a song, this couple had been dancing, a very attractive young lady and a cat that had on a pair of blue suedes. And at the end of the song he said, ‘Uh-uh, don’t step on my suedes.’
“And it bothered me, you know. Not having owned a pair, I didn’t realize that if you step on them, you got to brush them off a little bit. It discolors the toes of them. But the thing that bothered me was he thought that much of a pair of stupid shoes to actually hurt her feelings.
“So I went home that night and I just could not go to sleep. I just kept seeing her face. And she said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ And she really was.
“And I laid there, and I thought of the old nursery rhyme, one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go. I got my guitar down, and I said, well, it’s one for the money, ta-dum, dum, two for the show.”
Perkins recorded “Blue Suede Shoes” at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio in Memphis.
“When my record came out January 2, 1956, RCA Victor contacted Elvis. And they said, Elvis, there’s a hit song out there. We want you to get in the studio and record it. And Steve Sholes, allegedly was the man who recorded Elvis back in the early part of his career at Victor, said the song is ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’
“He said, ‘Yes, sir, you’re right. I think it’s a hit song myself. But that’s my friend Carl Perkins. And that’s a Sun record.’ And he didn’t want to do that song at the time they wanted him to, which was in January of 1956.”
“Blue Suede Shoes” was climbing the charts when Perkins and his band were in a serious car crash. Presley recorded his version in April and asked that RCA not release it as a single until Perkins’ original had cooled off.
“That was the kind of guy he was,” said Perkins. “He could’ve jumped on it first, and nobody would’ve ever known Carl Perkins existed. But because of the nature of this fine individual human being named Elvis, he wanted me to have success with it, and he thought I would have if he stayed off of it, and that’s what he did.”
Perkins explained why he “loved” Presley’s version.
“Elvis did it faster than I did. In the music industry, we call it the groove. The beat that he put to it was uptempo from mine quite a bit. And I loved his so much till I drifted into doing it like he did — faster.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of 100 Greatest 50s Rock, Pop & Doo Wop Songs and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
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