Elvis Is Everywhere

“There have been a lot of tough guys.  There have been pretenders.  And there have been contenders.  But there is only one King.” – Bruce Springsteen

ith his birthday havin’ just passed by an’ havin’ even more recently finally committed my anti-Beatles diatribe to print, I find myself contemplating The King.

What is there that can be said about Elvis Presley?  Folks worship him.  People abhor him.  People spin wild, unlearned yarns about the man.  Some are even just plain agnostic towards the whole premise.

For most of the young world today it seems that Elvis is almost sort of a cartoon.  He seems more like Mickey Mouse than a historical, real-life, flesh and blood human being.  The Dead Milkmen, at the height of their powers, even parodied Goin’ to Graceland with “… if this were Disneyworld I’d buy a pair of Elvis ears…”  But if you had to explain to someone why he is more than that, explain his importance in the big picture, what is it that you would say?  Why should anyone anymore bother taking note of Elvis Presley?

Perhaps because he was a gigantic contributor to changing the way America thinks about music.  Perhaps because, in a time blemished by racism and segregation and hatred, he unashamedly appropriated the stylings of Black American music and heralded them as an important contribution to the development of the 20^th century western world.  At a time when the Grand Ole Opry refused to acknowledge the existence of drums and Pat Boone was attempting to correct Fats Domino’s grammar in his cover of “Ain’t That a Shame”, Elvis Presley lauded the songwriting and music making of his Black influences so earnestly that he refused to be finished rendering his versions of their songs until he believed he had communicated every nuance of the originals he treasured so preciously.

Amidst the tumult of the advent of rock n roll in mid century America, Elvis Presley stood tall and never shied from the fact that he valued the vibrant, effervescent, rollicking musical stylings of Black America every bit as much as his old country European musical roots.  Elvis really saw the music as the voice of the youth.  He saw it as the soundtrack to the messages he memorized James Dean communicating from the silver screen.  He shook his hips and crooned and hammered his guitar for Sun Records and RCA, and then he seamlessly sewed it all together in his portrayal of disenfranchised young America in “King Creole” in 1958.

And then he went into the Army, and when he came back, he wasn’t the same.  You see, in mid-twentieth century America, rock n roll was dangerous.  Just as black music, despite its centuries of interweaving with Eurocentric musical stylings in the “New World”, seemed to always have been considered, in and of itself, dangerous.  Attribute to it fear of interracial commingling (or worse yet, interracial sex!), fear of moral erosion, or just plain fear of the unknown; whatever reasoning can be assigned, it still points to a fear of rebelliousness to be potentially instilled in America’s youth via the race recording.  And apparently no one recognized this rampant fear better than Elvis’ Colonel Tom Parker.  But more than recognizing that his meal-ticket was playing in hot water, Parker realized that if there truly was a would-be moral backlash coming down the road against rock n roll, and particularly its white heraldry as embodied in Elvis Presley, then he would no longer be counting his deposit receipts from the bank.  So, while Elvis cooled his heels doing his patriotic duty and punching the card for Uncle Sam, Parker hatched a detour to preserve the financial potential of the young rock n roller.

That detour was pop.  By the time Elvis got out of the army, The Colonel had prepared a yellow brick road to the financially lucrative middle ground of pop music.  And while the early 1960s moral brigade went to work full time against the ills of rock n roll as the Great Satan, Elvis was spirited away into a decade of musicals, comedy, and middle of the dial radio safety.  Gone was the edgy young man who out James Deaned James Dean in King Creole.

But this transformation was not exactly detrimental to Elvis.  While the Beatles were having the red carpet rolled out to them, four white Brits with no connection to the American South who were solving the race record issue for the record industry and burying American music in the process, Elvis Presley was solidifying his musical reputation by developing a catalog that would far outbreadth any of his contemporaries and certainly challenge many artists to come after him.  He cut his teeth in rock n roll, but he moved on to rally virtually every other musical styling into his repertoire, and the results were never failure.  His two and a half octave voice and his profound respect for the dreams and history entailed within the art brought every aspect of the musical experience under his power.

Except songwriting.  Yes, Elvis was never a songwriter.  In his quarter century career, it is pretty much accepted that Elvis Presley never wrote a song.  Somewhere there is a label that has his name on it, sharing credit with a handful of other individuals, but it is generally understood that this one credit was honorary rather than indicative of a creative contribution.  Yet it should be acknowledged that it never seemed to be Elvis’ intention to be a songwriter or lyricist.  His focus always appeared to be in the performance itself, as if the presentation of what he chose as important to communicate were more important than anything else.  Elvis holds no place on the shelves of the mighty lyricists and verbal poets and songwriters that crowd the history of American music, but as a performer he is untouchable.  From his earliest toyings at Sun Records to the rhinestoned flash and tumult of his Vegas aristocracy, it is Elvis the PERFORMER that has always been the focus.  Elvis the Renderer, not Elvis the Creator.  And the man always showed a powerful talent for choosing the material and fabric of the musical world that he knew he was best able to sew up into infallible performance.

There are few individuals in the history of American music who have caught and maintained the attention of the listening and observing populace like Elvis Presley.  His presence permeates American, and world, culture.  Whether he is being revered or he is being mocked, the fact is undeniable that he is not ignorable, even now, nearly 35 years after his death.  Elvis has left the building, but the brand he left upon us, love it or hate it, is still raw and fiery.  And history since Elvis keeps bringing us individuals to exemplify his still yawing influence.

Take Michael Jackson.  Michael Jackson apparently had such a profound enamorment with Elvis Presley that not only did he blatantly and proudly incorporate The King’s movements into his dance routines and declared himself “The King of Pop”, but he married the man’s daughter!  Michael Jackson is one of the great personas to imprint world musical culture in the latter 20^th century, a fantastic performer AND singer/songwriter, but how much of who he sought to be and who we allowed him to be was rooted in the legacy of Elvis?

I have a friend.  His name is James King… or Ghassan, depending on how well you know him.  He is Lebanese.  He immigrated to the United States illegally as a teenager in the 1990s to become an Elvis impersonator.

Yes, you read that right.  Ghassan, or James, has an interesting tale.  It is really best to hear him tell it, but I will recount it here because it is good support for my premise of the continuing significance of Elvis Presley.  Ghassan grew up in Beirut, and as a boy he was a gigantic Michael Jackson fan.  Even in the war-torn and anti-American 1980s, Michael Jackson and disreputable American culture could not be kept out of an apparently relatively worldly and cosmopolitan place like Beirut.  And Ghassan was such a Michael Jackson fan that he knew all the lyrics to his songs, although he could not speak English, and no one in Beirut could replicate the King of Pop’s dance moves with more accuracy. 

One day, however, Ghassan was walking through downtown Beirut accompanied by his elder sister.  Suddenly, Ghassan found himself staring up at the plate glass window of a music shop.  Or, more specifically, a poster that was hanging in said window.  It was a poster of Elvis Presley.  !950s Elvis Presley.  Young, virile, red jacketed, standing on the toes of his shiny black shoes, glossy hair swept back, a few stray strands caressing his forehead.

In awe, Ghassan looked up at the hypnotizing image.  “Who is that?” he inquired of his sister.

“Oh, that’s Elvis Presley, an American rock and roll star,” she responded.

“Is he better than Michael Jackson?”

As Ghassan tells it, his sister smirked down at him and said, “Oh yes, he’s the KING of rock and roll.”

And thus began the quest to find something, ANYTHING Elvis in the confines of Beirut.  Despite the availability of Michael Jackson, finding something Elvis was not such an easy task.  But eventually find it he did.  An old, worn cassette tape in a box in a second hand shop.  And Ghassan took that cassette home and poured over it, listened to it, learned it, mesmorized every word… although he did not speak English… and after achieving a level of mastery he would perform for his friends, singing along to “Tutti Frutti” and swinging a tennis ball racket in approximation of a guitar.

And then on to America.  Ghassan dodged the mandatory Lebanese draft, overstayed a student visa, became James King, and pursued the American Dream as an impersonator of the King of Rock and Roll.  Visiting family was difficult due to the fact that his dodging of the draft was a crime punishable by imprisonment if he ever returned to Lebanon, so they would rendezvous in the UAE at his sister’s home.  One such occasion coincided with 9/11, however, and he could not return to the United States without going through the legal paperwork.  But he did.  And he is still here.  James King.  Entertainer.  Elvis.

A couple summers ago, my friend Keefe (who some of you may know as The Omen O’Brien) and I made a pilgrimage across the United States via I-40.  Our ultimate destination was Nashville, but we also paid our respects in Memphis at Sun Studios and Graceland.  Troublemaker that I am, and despite my adamant respect for Elvis (which is an oddity, considering that I am not that much of an Elvis man, myself), I bragged to Keefe a great deal about how my intention was to be thrown out of Graceland.  I mean, think of the notoriety!  Being thrown out of Graceland.  Heh.

Well, as can be expected, I didn’t get too far in my scheme.  I made some off color commentary while waiting in line for the shuttle and then, while on the shuttle, the driver announced the various locales of Graceland we would be seeing on that particular tour.  One such site was Elvis’ private racquetball court.  To this, I retorted, “Awesome, we’re gonna see where the King whacked his balls!”

I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but an immense guilt came over me at that moment.  It is hard to describe, but at best, it was as if there was some kind of moral or ethic code my conscience was warning me that I was breaking, and I could not go forward.  It was almost as if I felt like I was being un-American.  And I fell quiet, all intentions of causing a security-call-grade disturbance fleeing away.

If there is one thing I came away from Graceland with it was an impression of what I can only define as the “modesty” of Elvis Presley.  Having never been to Graceland, seeing it only in pictures my whole life, and not having much for reference, ultimately I was impressed with the sheer smallness of it all.  Sure, it’s a big house by the standards of your everyday Levittown suburb, but it is not a mansion in the sense of the word developed for us by this era of MTV Cribs.  Here was this young man, with more money than he knew what to do with, and instead of commissioning some palatial structure to be built to some exacting standards of his own, he bought an antiquated, modestly large home and dwelled happily in it.  Sure, entering through the front door, you are confronted by his legendary 50 foot long couch… but it barely fits in the room.  And it is ALL there is in the room.  And opposite that is a dining room, surely elegantly (perhaps garishly to some) decorated for entertaining, yet inhabited by a table set that my own family would be hard pressed to gather around without rubbing elbows.  And likewise is the experience throughout the house.  Certainly it is evidenced that the man had an immense amount of wealth to spend, and the tacky glitz typically associated with wealth abounds, but it is all contained within a home that never elicits a feeling of being anything more than just that, a home.

Elvis is not an easy subject to tackle.  As with any human being, and magnified in complexity by fame and assumption of a larger than life identity, it is hard to sift through all the grains and know exactly where you should stand.  There can be no denial that Elvis loved America, but the excess that it brought him seems to almost have consumed him with a voracity that could equal only his own rapid amplification as a giant personality.  Bruce Springsteen put it very eloquently when he stated that Elvis “… was as big as the whole country itself, as big as the whole dream.  He just embodied the essence of it and he was in mortal combat with the thing.”

Late in his life, huge and distraught, addicted to grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches and prescription medications, it is not hard to imagine Elvis comparing himself with the once vibrant, unpredictable young man he started out as and finding himself wanting.  Just as Elvis was the great initial experiment of drug therapy, doctors prescribing him this or that and some of those in response to his complaints of ailments, he was also America’s first great experiment with mega-stardom.  America injected itself into Elvis Presley, inflating him with all its hopes, dreams, self-perceptions, and responsibilities.  In that swelled accountability, as pointed out by Springsteen, Elvis lost sight of himself, lost sight of that truck driving mama’s boy, lost sight of his own American Dream in favor of America’s Dream.  In turn, America lost sight of Elvis the man and incarnated Elvis the deity.  No amount of valiant battle on his own part could have delivered Elvis Presley from the cross of martyrdom America has crucified him on.

Think of Elvis as kitsch.  The novel, “those were the good ole days” object of adoration.  What is the ultimate kitsch Elvis object?  The Elvis velvet painting, finally denoted as a “Velvis” in the late 20^th century.  Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Musuem, wrote in a series of posts that Elvis on velvet goes far beyond the apparent kitschy association and is rather a manifestation of iconography.  He points out that the velvet painting, in spite of “naked women and unicorns”, is an art form of “tears”, dominated by “charismatic martyrs” with Elvis Presley and Jesus Christ at the top of the list.  It is this “thorny crown” that Vikan declares Elvis has handed down to those who have come after him.

Many modern songwriters and musicians, standing in the ever lengthening shadow of The King and no doubt trying to decipher their place in that puzzle, have written of the complexity and confusion the topic of Elvis Presley has left the modern world with.  In the Byrom, Monty, Kimmel penned tune, Elvis on Velvet, presented to us by The Stray Cats on their final album in 1992, examines the parody of merchandising Elvis Presley has become and how it is likely he would be disappointed with the deification laid upon him.

Elvis on Velvet (Byrom, Monty, Kimmel)

All night long way, black top highway, midnight, hittin' a groove
Mustang, radio, rag-top, jukebox, Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel
Roadside rest stop, all night truck stop, sideshow out of a van
Rhinestone lunchbox, ashtray, junk shop, key chain, hittin' the fan

Elvis on velvet - don't know why it makes me blue
Elvis on velvet - it's got a strange effect on you
Elvis on velvet - somehow it makes me mad
Elvis on velvet - and I can see him tonight up on the road ahead

Well, drift back, daydream, Memphis street scene, 1955
Street flair, flat-bed, three piece string band, shakin', man alive
Then Heartbreak Hotel, Jailhouse Rock, Love Me Tender please
I'm All Shook Up, too much, so Treat Me Nice and Wear My Ring

Elvis on velvet - don't know why it makes me blue
Elvis on velvet - it's got a strange effect on you
Elvis on velvet - somehow it makes me mad
Elvis on velvet - and I can see him tonight up on the road ahead

Well, Graceland, wasteland, right this way ma’am, one low price to pay
His life, his love, his home, his stuff, his final resting place
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, thy records re-released
All kneel to second guess and bless him, let him rest in peace

Elvis on velvet - don't know why it makes me blue
Elvis on velvet - it's got a strange effect on you
Elvis on velvet - somehow it makes me mad
Elvis on velvet - and I can see him tonight up on the road ahead

More recently, Bono, from larger-than-life rock band U2, worked with Howie B and Brian Eno to create an eccentric album of musics under the band name The Passengers.  On this album is Bono’s exploration of the Elvis Presley question, titled Elvis Ate America.

Elvis Ate America (The Passengers)

Elvis... white trash
Elvis... the Memphis flash
Elvis... didn't smoke hash
Would've been a sissy without Johnny Cash

Elvis... didn't dodge the draft
Elvis... had his own aircraft
Elvis... having a laugh
On the Lisa Marie in a color photograph

Elvis... under the hood
Elvis... with Cadillac blood
Elvis... darling bud
Flowered and returned to the Mississippi mud

Elvis... ain't gonna rot
Elvis... in a Memphis plot
Elvis... he didn't hear the shot
And Dr. King died just across the lot from...

Elvis... vanilla ice cream
Elvis... girls of fourteen
Elvis... the Memphis spleen
Shooting TVs reading Corinthians 13

Elvis... with God on his knees
Elvis... owned three TVs
Here come the killer bees
Head full of honey potato chips and cheese

Elvis... the bumper stickers
Elvis... the white knickers
Elvis... the white nigger
Ate at king burger and just kept getting bigger

Elvis... sang to win
Elvis... the battle hymn
Elvis... the battle to be slim
Elvis ate America before America ate him

Elvis...

Elvis... stamps
Elvis... necromance
Elvis... fans
Elvis... sycophants
Elvis... the public enemy
Elvis... don't mean shit to Chuck D
Elvis... changed the center of gravity
Made it slippy

Elvis... Hitler
Elvis... Nixon
Elvis... Christ
Elvis... Mishima
Elvis... Markus
Elvis... Jackson
Elvis... the pelvis
Elvis... the psalmist
Elvis... the genius
Elvis... generous
Elvis... forgive us
Elvis... pray for us
Elvis... Aaron
Elvis... Presley

And the list goes on.  As much today as ever it seems that Elvis is still a hot topic of discussion.  While much written about him seems to lay the crime of the robbery of rock n roll from the black man at Presley’s feet, as smartly exemplified by Chuck D’s notorious commentary and In Living Color’s “Elvis is Dead”, it can be strongly argued that The Beatles are the real culprits of this heist.  The Beatles, however, in their evolution as near perfect Greek tragedy, garner much sympathy from the modern world.  But Elvis Presley, likely as a result of a serious lack of introspection on the part of America itself, is often played out as a pathetic joke rather than the complicated entity he is, permitting an easy disregard and vilification.

Regardless of stance, however, it is evident that we are likely in need of accepting the fact that Elvis is here to stay.  In the near six decades since Presley became Sam Phillips’ hot item, there has been no one to surpass or usurp the position (and responsibility) America bestowed upon the man.  As a performer with an unmatched repertoire, as a cultural icon, as phenomenon, love or hate, Elvis cannot be easily pushed aside.  The ability to do so likely indicates a lack of knowledge of or connectedness to (or both) the indelible strands of controversy that course through the American (and world) psyche.

Like it or not, Elvis has been placed in a potentially irrefutable position of power within the modern societal construct.  It is a question that has no answer, but despite its unsolvable nature, we must find ourselves continually addressing it.  In the acknowledgment of this significance are we to be okay with Elvis fanaticism?  Probably not.  Fanaticism actually obscures the true topic of importance.  Elvis fanatics hold no better place in my book than The Beatles maniacs that I so often deride.  But it is our challenge, as is the case with all daunting tasks that face us, to be able to delve through these obscurations on the part of the masses and determine our own learned conclusions.  But the starting point is to relegate Elvis to the appropriate spot in our viewpoint.  He was and is important and is not likely to be challenged anytime soon. 

Returning to the words of Bruce Springsteen: “No one will ever take the place of that guy.”

- Squeezebox Sam