If I Can Dream 1968

Elvis usually shied away from political songs. But in 1968 he whole-heartedly embraced a piece recorded two months after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in the singer’s hometown of Memphis. The words, which echo King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, were penned by Walter Earl Brown to serve as the closing number of the television network special Elvis (later known as the “’68 Comeback Special”). Schilling was with Elvis when it was announced on TV that King had been killed. “Elvis looked down with tears in his eyes and said, ‘That man always told the truth,’” Schilling recalls. “I consider Elvis to be a writer on this song. That song was him expressing how he truly felt.”