Hail to the King
As everyone knows, Elvis Presley would have been 70 years old yesterday. Sorry I missed your birthday, King.
Yeah, he never wrote a song, and he recorded a lot of junk, and almost all his movies are a waste of time, and his final years were just sad. On the other hand, if he hadn't lived it would have been necessary to invent him.
I like what Greil Marcus said in Mystery Train, which everyone should read right away. Marcus' point was that Elvis, whatever else you might say about him, was great. He was a great rocker, a great bore, a great American, a great purveyor of schlock, and so forth. In other words, he jumped into life with both feet and did something with it. We're still trying to figure out what, and it's a very useful inquiry.
Which probably explains why there are still people who believe he's still alive. In a very real sense, he is.
Benshlomo says, I would not care to live in a world that had not been touched by Elvis.
Yeah, he never wrote a song, and he recorded a lot of junk, and almost all his movies are a waste of time, and his final years were just sad. On the other hand, if he hadn't lived it would have been necessary to invent him.
I like what Greil Marcus said in Mystery Train, which everyone should read right away. Marcus' point was that Elvis, whatever else you might say about him, was great. He was a great rocker, a great bore, a great American, a great purveyor of schlock, and so forth. In other words, he jumped into life with both feet and did something with it. We're still trying to figure out what, and it's a very useful inquiry.
Which probably explains why there are still people who believe he's still alive. In a very real sense, he is.
Benshlomo says, I would not care to live in a world that had not been touched by Elvis.
posted by benshlomo at 11:58 AM
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