Lisa Marie Presley didn’t often let cameras follow her around Graceland, the Memphis home where she grew up with her father, Elvis.
In 2013 she made an exception. She sat down with Yahoo Music for an interview filmed right inside the house, near the Peacock Room. It was a rare time a camera crew was allowed in, and Yahoo Entertainment shared her memories again in August 2017.
She had plenty of stories that day. One of the best involved Christmas and a very curious dad.
Around the same time, she also gave Entertainment Tonight a tour of the house.
Lisa Marie shows Entertainment Tonight around Graceland
The Christmas she was talking about was the last one she could remember at Graceland. That year she was getting records by somebody new.
“The last Christmas I remember here, I was getting Elton John records,” she said.
Elton John was the singer behind the 1973 album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” And to Elvis, he was a mystery.
“[My dad] wanted to know who he was, and why was I listening to him. He wanted to get a record so he could hear it. I think it was the Yellow Brick Road album, or the one before that. He really, really wanted to know who this was that I was listening to that was not him!”
You can almost see the King of Rock n’ Roll standing in the doorway, wondering who had won over his little girl.
Here’s the title song from the album Lisa Marie thought it might have been, the one her dad wanted to hear for himself.
Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”
Of course, she heard plenty of her dad’s music up close too. When Elvis recorded in the Jungle Room, the den at Graceland, “There’s a red light that would go on when he was [recording],” she said, and “I was right outside.” Everybody had to stay totally silent once that light came on, and “It was very exciting.”
One of her sweetest memories goes back to when she was tiny. Elvis had a walk-in closet with a big mirror in it. “It was in his closet; he has a walk-in,” she said. “He has a big three-way mirror.”
That’s where she’d put on a show.
“I was just going at it, and my hairbrush, singing away in the mirror. I must have been 3.”
And she had an audience. “He was in the hallway looking through the door in the crack,” she said.
So there was Elvis Presley, the biggest star in the world, peeking in on his daughter’s very first concert.
Lisa Marie went on to make music of her own, with albums called “To Whom It May Concern,” “Now What” and “Storm & Grace.” So maybe Elvis had good reason to wonder who was inspiring her.
A fan channel has posted this interview with Lisa Marie filmed inside Graceland. It’s a chance to hear her talk about her home in her own voice.
Lisa Marie talks about life at Graceland
Years later, sitting in the same house, Lisa Marie could still tell you how badly her dad wanted to hear that other singer for himself. That Christmas record clearly made an impression on both of them.