Earworms: Breathless by Jerry Lee Lewis

The rock'n'roll classic many people forget.

Certain songs take hold in my head, sometimes old, sometimes new, for reasons which may or may not be obvious. So, I’ll write stuff about them.

Of course, Jerry Lee Lewis was fueled by an overabundance of testosterone, which is both why he was able to deliver such powerful, highly driven, and face it, sexual performances, and why he was known for so many bad behaviors away from the stage or recording studio. But, he also had a romantic streak, at least in his singing, and he was able to mix playfulness, aggression, love, and passion into a single record.

“Breathless” was written by Otis Blackwell, who had also written “Great Balls of Fire,” as well as “Fever,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and quite a few other gems of the early rock’n’roll period. Lewis took it and made it one of his four stone classics of his early career – “Great Balls of Fire,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and “High School Confidential” being the others. With Billy Lee Riley of “Red Hot” and “Flyin’ Saucers Rock and Roll” fame on guitar, Lewis generated a stirring brew that mixed sexual delight with the tropes of young love. His various deliveries of the word “Breathless” after the instruments drop out and he exhales a long sigh are exquisite mixed signals of lust, satisfaction, and amour.

One! Two! Three! Four! Lewis pounds the chords with his left hand to kick off the record. Jimmy Van Eaton snaps across his drum kit as Lewis double times the chords, then J.W. Brown on bass and Riley on guitar double up a standard, hard-driving blues riff as Lewis pumps the piano to set the boiling stage for what we expect to be a declaration of animal desire. “Now if you love me / Let’s please don’t tease / If I can hold you / Then let me squeeze.” It sounds as though Jerry Lee has but one thing on his mind. The second verse, however, lets us in on his emotions: “My heart goes round and round / My love comes a-tumblin’ down / You leave me / Ah, breathless.” I think the way Lewis is singing it, he’s not just feeding his girl what she wants to hear. His heart is pumping like his piano, and he wants her so much because she really does take his breath away.

We’d heard Lewis let loose with braggadocio on his previous breakthrough single, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” That was a song telling a woman that he can provide all the excitement she could ever need. “Breathless” is a song showing the opposite – his own need for all that she can offer him. Lewis sings this in a higher register, with a quieter demeanor even as the piano and the band rocks and rolls with fervor. I especially love the way he slides his voice up on the final word of this little bit – “Now it’s all right to hold me tight / But when you love me / Love me right.” That’s a man feeling an electric spark.

Then comes the piano solo, which is full of exuberance even if it suffers from not being loud enough in the right hand. After one chorus, Lewis shouts, “Keep it goin’,” and Billy Lee Riley elevates the record to another level with one of the all-time classic rockabilly solos. It’s one of the only times I can ever remember Lewis letting somebody else upstage him, if only for a few bars. Van Eaton, who has been doing stellar work throughout, really lets loose during the guitar solo, cracking across his kit and sounding briefly like two drummers with his crossing over cymbals and snare.

Lewis regains control when he takes up singing again, and it sounds as though things are getting hotter and heavier between him and his woman. “Well, ooh baby! Mmmm-mmmm crazy!” That’s an echo of the “Wiggle around just a little bit” part of his previous single, the quiet part which comes right before the explosion, though in “Breathless” things never boil over the way they do in “Shakin’.” Instead, they lead to that extremely satisfied, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh breathless, uh” at the end before two slabs of the band in unison puts a stopper on the record,.

Whatever else can be said about Jerry Lee Lewis, he made some pretty amazing records. That’s what I will retain forever in his memory.

Just for a little more fun in the new world, here’s the X version of the song, which they performed specifically to be included in the 1983 otherwise forgettable remake of Jean Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle, translated here as Breathless. All I remember about the film, which I did see in the theater because it had an X song in it, was that it opens with Lewis’s version of the song, and the closing credits rolled with the X version.

Billy Zoom revs up the guitar like a combination of Lewis’ piano and Riley’s guitar, only without the blues foundation in the riff. He was a lover of power chords played at super-fast tempos. John Doe on bass and DJ Bonebrake on drums pushed him harder and faster, while Exene Cervenka cooed the lyrics with her recently voice-trained control. She and Doe harmonized on the bridge. It’s a pretty dang glorious remake.