On the night of November 29, 2023, NBC did something that had never been done before. It broadcast a live music special from inside Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis. His granddaughter, actress Riley Keough, hosted it and served as an executive producer. Post Malone, Kacey Musgraves, John Legend, Alanis Morissette, Lainey Wilson and Kane Brown all sang in the rooms where Elvis actually lived.
Then the cameras moved into the Jungle Room.
If you have ever toured Graceland, you know it. Green shag carpet on the floor and the ceiling. Heavy carved Polynesian furniture. A waterfall built into the wall. It was Elvis’s den, the place he went to be himself. In 1976, too worn out to go to a studio, he had RCA haul recording equipment into that room and cut the last songs of his life right there.
And standing in that room was Lana Del Rey.
Lana Del Rey – Graceland – “Unchained Melody” – Live NBC
She was the obvious choice. Her whole sound is built from old American heartbreak, faded glamour, and 1950s longing. Sofia Coppola had even tried to get her to write a song for the film Priscilla that same year, but the timing didn’t work.
With a pianist and backing singers behind her, she chose “Unchained Melody.”
That was not a random pick.
The song is older than most people think. It was written in 1955 for a prison film titled Unchained and was nominated for an Oscar. The Righteous Brothers turned it into a monster hit in 1965, and Ghost made it famous all over again in 1990.
But Elvis fans hear something different in it.
Elvis Presley – “Unchained Melody”
In the spring of 1977, Elvis was 42 and worn down. Onstage, he would push the microphone stand aside, sit himself down at a white grand piano, and play it alone. No band leading him. No choreography. Just a heavy man in a jumpsuit hammering the keys and singing about waiting for someone to come home.
The version everyone knows was filmed on June 21, 1977, at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota. He was dead less than two months later. A live recording of the song from that same tour was included on his final album, Moody Blue.
People still call it one of the last great performances of his life. He looks exhausted. He sounds enormous.
That is the song Lana Del Rey carried back into his house, 46 years later, and sang softly in the room where he made his final records.
She didn’t try to belt it like him. She let it sit and ache. And that was the point.
Great songs work like time machines. Elvis has been gone since 1977, but a young woman standing on his green carpet can still open her mouth and put him right back in the room.
Graceland has been quiet for a long time. For four minutes that night, it wasn’t.