In 1968, Elvis Presley hadn’t sung on live television in years. He’d spent most of the decade making movies, and plenty of people quietly wondered if the King of Rock n’ Roll still had it in him. A TV special was going to answer that question. The young director in charge was Steve Binder, and he had big plans for how the whole thing should end.
There was one problem.
Colonel Tom Parker, the manager who controlled nearly every part of Elvis’s career, had his own idea. The Colonel wanted the show to close the warm, cozy way a Perry Como variety hour would, with a sweet Christmas song. So he called Elvis and Binder into a tiny office to settle it face to face.
Binder remembers the Colonel laying it out plain. “Well, Elvis wants a Christmas song in the show. Don’t you, Elvis?” Binder says Elvis “sort of had his head down and his eyes lowered and he said ‘Yes sir’.” As far as the Colonel was concerned, that was the end of it.
Then came the hallway. Binder has told this story a lot over the years, and nobody tells it better than the man who was standing right next to Elvis.
The director of the 1968 special on how the ending was really decided
The second they were out the door, Elvis gave Binder a little jab in the ribs. In Binder’s words, Elvis said, “We’re not gonna worry about that.” He’d told the Colonel yes to his face and made up his own mind the moment he was in the hall.
What Elvis wanted instead was a song that actually said something. 1968 had been a hard year in America, with two leaders the country loved suddenly gone, and Elvis felt all of it. A songwriter named Walter Earl Brown wrote a brand new number just for the special, called “If I Can Dream.” It was a song about hope.
Binder says when Elvis first heard it, he couldn’t let it go. He kept the musicians playing it. “He said ‘Play it again’… He had Billy and Earl play this song I would say three or four times. And he looked at me and said, ‘Okay I’ll do it’.” The minute he agreed, publishing contracts appeared at the door.
The Colonel got a little of what he wanted, by the way. “Blue Christmas” stayed in the show’s sit-down section. But the big finish, the last thing America would see, that one belonged to Elvis.
Elvis closing the 1968 special with “If I Can Dream”
He stood there in a white suit against towering red letters and sang it like everything was riding on it. It turned into one of the most powerful moments of his whole career and put him right back on top. Watch his face in that last song and you’ll understand exactly what that quiet hallway decision was worth.