Just this morning I realized that when Elvis sang "Won't you wear my ring around your neck?" he was talking about stringing the ring and then putting the string around your neck. All these decades I assumed he was talking some iron slave collar thing, which made the song hillbilly and spooky and cool. Instead it turns out just to've been part of the domestication process.

Return to Nevèrÿon in a Long Black Limousine

Dr. Justine Larbalestier reminisces:

I went back and had a look at the first entry and there's the one about your misunderstanding Elvis' "Won't you wear my ring around your neck" the exact same way I had misunderstood it. (Actually how else could you misunderstand it?) I remembered us discussing that misunderstanding. I always liked the next line: "To tell the world I'm yours, by heck" not just cause of the fab "neck" "heck" rhyme but because the slave collar around the neck was indicating ownership not *being* owned.