Why the “In the Ghetto” Songwriter Knew He Had a Hit When He Got Cursed out Over the Phone

In most cases, people don’t hope to receive a flurry of expletives when showing other folks the music they wrote. But when it’s a case of two songwriters showing one another their latest work, an F-bomb or two can be a sign that you’re headed in the right direction. At least, that’s how Mac Davis took it when he showed his friend and colleague, Freddy Weller, the earliest stages of what would become Elvis’ hit record, “In the Ghetto”.

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In a 2014 interview with The Tennesseean, Davis explained that he had been sitting on the general idea for the song for “what seemed like ages.” He knew he wanted to write a song about his childhood friend. The friend lived in a far worse neighborhood than he did, even though they were exactly the same in his five-year-old head. “I couldn’t figure out why they had to live where they lived, and we got to live where we lived.”

Davis wanted to turn that song into something called “Vicious Circle”, highlighting the ways in which children who grow up in poverty tend to follow that same trajectory into adulthood. “A kid is born. He doesn’t have a male parent and falls into the wrong people and dies just as another kid comes along and replaces him. It’s just a vicious circle.”

There was only one thing wrong with an otherwise thoughtful song. It’s hard to come up with multiple good rhymes for the word “circle.”

Mac Davis Wrote “In the Ghetto” After Hearing His Friend Play a Memorable Lick

As most songwriters will attest, a song can get knocked loose from the simplest of inspirations. For Mac Davis, it was a friend casually showing him a guitar lick he picked up from someone else. While speaking to The Tennesseean, Davis recalled his friend, Freddy Weller, visiting him at the publishing company where he worked. Weller picked up a guitar and showed Davis a riff he had just learned. And that was just the “eureka” moment Davis needed to finish his long-pondered song, “Vicious Circle”.

But Davis kept that moment close to the chest. “I didn’t say anything, went home that night, and sat down with that lick. I started singing, “In the Ghetto,” and by about two o’clock in the morning, I had written the song. Of course, I called Freddy up as I was wont to do in those days and sung him the song at two o’clock in the morning. There was a long silence, and he said some foul cuss word and hung up on me.”

Indeed, expletives aren’t always a sign that you did something right. But when those curse words come from a songwriter who wished he had written the record first, it’s certainly a positive. “In the Ghetto” was a massive hit for Elvis Presley, who released the track on his 1969 album, From Elvis in Memphis. The song topped the charts around the world, while it peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard No. 1 or not, it was still a commercial success. The song was one of many hits Davis would write for the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Better still, Davis didn’t have to try to find umpteen rhymes for ‘circle.’

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