Lisa Marie Presley Believed Elvis Presley Would Have ‘Understood’ Her ‘Path’ Because of ‘Redundant’ Career
Elvis Presley spent half of his lifetime in recording studios, performing songs written for him by other artists. In turn, his daughter Lisa Marie Presley wrote much of her own music and had to find her way as a performer outside her famous father’s shadow. She once revealed that Elvis would have “understood” her “path” as an artist because of the “redundant” aspects of his career.
Lisa Marie Presley believes Elvis Presley would have ‘understood’ her attempts to find her place as an entertainer
As Elvis Presley’s only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley was drawn to music as a small child. She loved listening to her famous father as he practiced or recorded his most iconic hits.
However, it wasn’t until Lisa Marie was 35 that she released her first LP, 2003’s To Whom it May Concern. She followed that up with Now What in 2005 and Storm & Grace in 2012.
In an interview with the Associated Press to promote her 2012 recording, Lisa Marie revealed that Elvis would have “understood” her attempts to try and find herself as an entertainer. She cited one particular reason why he would have felt this way.
“I feel that he would have been proud. But I think he would have understood the path I had to take to find myself here. The first two albums needed their place,” she explained.
“I needed to find my audience and my voice and try on different things for myself, ” Lisa Marie continued. However, she believed there was one reason Elvis would have understood his daughter’s path, and it was distinctively different from his journey as a musician.
“He would have understood my path and how I had to find my place. I know that instinctively as incredible as he was, it was a little bit redundant to do what he did and how he did it,” she concluded.
Moving to the United Kingdom in 2010 helped inspire Lisa Marie Presley to write new music
Based in California and Memphis, TN, for most of her adult life, Lisa Marie Presley moved to the United Kingdom in 2010 with her then-husband Michael Lockwood. The couple moved to a 50-acre farm in Rotherfield in East Sussex.
Lisa Marie said the move helped inspire her to write new music for her third album, Storm & Grace. She told the Associated Press she had a burst of creativity after changing locales with her family.
“[Producer] Simon Fuller was my friend. I told him I was completely uninspired and didn’t know what to do,” she told the Associated Press.
“Maybe if I just go far away and forget everything I have ever known. Then I would become inspired, which I did,” Lisa Marie continued. “I wrote 30 songs. It was just very natural,” she concluded of how moving helped open her up to writing new music.
Lisa Marie Presley ended up staying in the United Kingdom for almost three years
After recording Storm & Grace, Lisa Marie, Michael Lockwood, and her children Riley and Benjamin Keough remained in the United Kingdom for three years. However, they continued to travel back and forth to California, where Lisa Marie’s extended family, including her mother, Priscilla, lived.
“I go back and forth quite a bit because I have family,” she said in 2012. “The little ones need to see family members, and I also work out of LA.”
She said that although the move to the United Kingdom sparked her creativity, she had a new “appreciation” for LA upon her return. “Because now I have this completely different environment that I can escape and have a whole other life which is nothing like that.”
Lisa Marie Presley welcomed daughters Finley and Harper Lockwood to her family in 2008 and divorced Michael Lockwood in 2021. She died unexpectedly in Jan. 2023 of a bowel obstruction caused by scar tissue that developed after bariatric surgery years earlier, reported The New York Times on July 13, 2023.
