The King is dead....
- 17 Aug 07, 02:21 PM
I seem to have done nothing over the past 24 hours but watch or listen to Elvis tributes. There is no question that he could carry a tune, that he changed the face of popular music and spawned a million impersonators, but surely even the most ardent Elvis fans must have been surprised at the level of global interest in this 30th anniversary. It was on every show, on every news report and whilst I would happily accept that he was a phenomenon I am still, quite frankly, shocked. All these debates about whether he should have gone into the army and whether he should have split from Col Parker? Then there are the people who keep coming up to me and asking ‘Where were you when Elvis died?” like it’s some kind of rite of passage or defining moment in your life. To be honest, I don’t actually remember where I was. I think my friend Carol rang me up to tell me, but I was a schoolgirl in Glengormley and Elvis wasn’t really my thing.
Actually that’s why I almost didn’t go to Graceland when I visited Memphis about ten years ago - I was much more interested in hanging out on Beale Street and going to see Al Green. As it turned out I’m delighted I did. To see the Jungle Room, where it's forever 1977, with its outrageous animal print furniture, indoor water feature and green shag pile carpet – on the ceiling! But most impressive of all is the museum behind the mansion where you literally tour through Elvis’s life and see that sad, inexorable slide from gorgeous, hip gyrating, rock & roll god to sad, overweight, parody.
Seeing that terrible waste of life and talent, by the time I ended up in the Contemplation Garden, where Elvis is buried next to his nearest and dearest, I was crying almost as much as those ardent disciples who had made the pilgrimage to Graceland from all over the world.
That visit changed my perception of Elvis forever. I'm still far from slavishly devoted but there are a handful of songs like ‘The Wonder of You’ and ‘Always on My Mind’ that will always have a special place in my heart. You also can’t help but wonder what would have happened to Elvis if he hadn’t died of a heart attack at the age of 42. That’s younger than I am now and I like to think that my best work is still to come.
But above everything else, what has struck me most forcibly in the least few days is that whether you’re a fan of Elvis or not surely no other historical figure, world leader or cultural icon could have pulled off such a coup three decades after their death. Long live the King!
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Dearest Ms. Lenaghan,
The good thing about seminal figures dying young is that you can use variations on Mr. Lehrer's fine joke about Herr Mozart:
"It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year."
And did you, by any chance, catch Baron Trimble's programme about Mr. Presley that played on 主播大秀 Radio 4 last night?
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The shocking thing about Elvis is that he had suuca short career as a real "rocker".And why do nearly all Elvis impersonators do the later part of his life when he was over-weight and singing a load of sentimental rubbish! Once the Beatles and |Stones arived, the Elvis era was over! I always remeber whedn John Lennon was shot, but never when Elvis died!
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