MUS 4930 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Big Mama Thornton, Mae
Panchal
1
Bhakti Panchal
Professor Falwell
MUS 4930
3 August 2017
Comparative Listening Project
The song originally recorded by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thorton, “Hound Dog,” then
covered by Elvis Presley three years later. The song “Hound Dog,” is a twelve-bar blues song by
Willie Mae. There are many distinctions that can be pulled out between both versions. When the
song starts off in Thortons recording, she starts off slow at a low tempo voice when she says
“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog.” The next line she says “been snoopin’ ‘round the door,”
“You can way your tail, but I ain’t gonna feed you no more.” Which marks another difference
point, which is Presley’s and Thornton’s lyrics are distinct. Instead of using “been snoopin’
‘round the door,” he says “Cryin’ all the time,” and “Well, you ain’t ever caught a rabbit and you
ain’t no friend of mine.” When Presley starts off the song, his voice is high pitched, energetic
and a bit fast paced. Both beats are very different, in Thorton's version the claps are slow and
steady compared to Presley’s version which the claps were more upbeat, fast paced and crisp, in
his music he had more drums involved. If someone was looking for a song to dance to, it would
probably be Presley’s version because it is fast paced.
In Thorton's version, there is more of a slower tempo, a pure acoustic bass, and a
drumbeat. The overall song has free flowing vocals; in addition, Presley’s uses repetition in his
lyrics, for example, he uses the repetition of “well” and a past tense when he said “high-classed”
in many of his lines which bring the upbeat rhythm of the song. Instead of “You told me you was
high-class,” he used “Well they said you was high-classed;” he mostly used the repetition of the
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