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Aging & Wisdom Quote by Mac Davis

"There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories"

About this Quote

The casual speed-run from “chance” to “by eight oclock the next morning” is the real flex here, and it lands because Mac Davis frames songwriting less as mystic inspiration than as a job you do on deadline when history taps you on the shoulder. The context is Elvis’s 1968 comeback special: the black leather, the stripped-down set, the old hits delivered with swagger and a little desperation. That segment wasn’t just nostalgia; it was a reassertion of relevance, a televised argument that the King still belonged in the present tense.

Davis’s intent reads as quietly strategic. He’s not claiming he reinvented Elvis; he’s positioning “Memories” as a bespoke bridge between eras, a new song engineered to sit comfortably beside the canon. The subtext is that Elvis’s mythology needed fresh material that could pass for timeless, something that sounded like it had always existed. Writing overnight isn’t just a brag about craft; it hints at the machinery behind pop legend-making, how quickly the “classic” can be manufactured when the moment demands it.

The line “There was a chance for me” also carries a songwriter’s humility with an edge: in Elvis’s orbit, access is everything, and a single placement can rewrite your career. Davis implies he understood the assignment - leather-clad Elvis revisiting the past, but needing a new emotional anchor - and delivered on command. That’s how pop culture works at its peak: myth, commerce, and vulnerability getting stitched together before breakfast.

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TopicMusic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Davis, Mac. (2026, January 16). There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-was-a-chance-for-me-to-write-one-song-for-114947/

Chicago Style
Davis, Mac. "There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-was-a-chance-for-me-to-write-one-song-for-114947/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-was-a-chance-for-me-to-write-one-song-for-114947/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Mac Add to List
Mac Davis on Writing Memories for Elvis Presley 1968 NBC Special
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About the Author

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Mac Davis (January 21, 1942 - September 29, 2020) was a Musician from USA.

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