The late Lisa Marie Presley, the only daughter of Elvis Presley and wife Priscilla, was born into a musical legacy. However, Lisa Marie carved out her own path as a songwriter. Lisa Marie’s music was raw. She drew on her life experiences in her lyrics. However, none of her songs were more poignant than the tune “Lights Out,” an ode to her family.” There she sang of a “space left” in “the damn back lawn” for her in Graceland’s Meditation Garden.
Graceland is the Presley family’s ancestral home
Located in Memphis, TN, Graceland is the family home of the Presley clan. Elvis purchased Graceland in March 1957 at the age of 22. Per the home’s official website, he bought the house and adjacent grounds for $102,500.
Graceland allowed the entertainer to retreat from the public eye. When Presley first purchased the property, he lived at Graceland with his father, Vernon, mother, Gladys, and Grandmother, Minnie Mae. Several family members also lived at Graceland, including Elvis’ aunt, Delta Presley Biggs, Vernon’s sister.
Presley also shared the home with his wife Priscilla, daughter Lisa Marie, friends and hangers-on called “The Memphis Mafia,” and later, Linda Thompson. It is where Lisa and her family, including children Riley and Benjamin Keough and Harper and Finley Lockwood, regularly spent holidays. She called it her home.
However, Lisa was keenly aware that Graceland was also where family members were laid to rest. She tackled those complicated feelings in her song “Lights Out.”
Lisa Marie Presley sang about a ‘space left’ in ‘the damn back lawn’ in ‘Lights Out’
In 2003, Lisa Marie released an album titled To Whom It May Concern. She wrote a song titled “Lights Out,” released as the lead single off the LP. It was an honest look at growing up in the spotlight as Elvis Presley’s daughter.
The song’s lyrics include, “Someone turned the lights out there in Memphis. That’s where my family’s buried and gone. Last time I was there, I noticed a space left. Next to them, there in Memphis. In the damn back lawn.”
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Lisa Marie did not want “Lights Out” as her lead single. However, she ultimately decided it would help “clear the air” regarding her life.
She told The New York Times, ”I was trying not to be predictable and make the reference right off the bat to my heritage. ‘My concern was that it would go against everything I’m trying to do now: make my own thumbprint. By the end, though, I saw that it might help clear the air.”
There’s one sad aspect of Graceland Lisa Marie Presley didn’t appreciate
Lisa Marie discussed the grim reality of looking out the back window of her home. It features a vista that includes stables and horses and a family cemetery.
“The back lawn of Graceland is a graveyard, basically. How many people have a family grave in the backyard? How many people are reminded of their fate, their mortality, every ****ing day?” she once told Express.
Graceland’s cemetery is also called the Meditation Garden. Elvis, his parents Vernon and Gladys, and his grandmother Minnie Mae are all buried in side-by-side graves. There is also a marker for Elvis’ twin brother Jesse.
In Oct. 2020, Lisa Marie’s son with husband Danny Keough, Benjamin, was laid to rest in the family plot. Graceland’s official Facebook page confirmed the news. Benjamin died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in July 2020.
