8/16/77 - Elvis leaves the building forever
Elvis died 30 years ago today. The apocryphal story is that a Hollywood agent upon hearing the news thought for a time and then said “good career move.”
It was – dead Elvis is bigger than Elvis ever was when he was alive except for the moment he first burst onto the national scene and scared the living daylights out of everybody. (It’s hard to remember just how panicked the powers that be were by this kid.)
I wander all over the track thinking about Elvis – there was this stupid McDonald’s ad a few years ago where a woman is remembering the time Elvis was going to be on the ed Sullivan show . She and her sister were ecstatic with anticipation but the TV broke so her dad took them to MacDonald’s for burgers.
The kicker is that years later they found out that their dear old dad had purposely broke the set so his daughter’s purity would not be imperiled by the Heathen shakings of hips Ed wouldn’t show.
The commercial painted the idea the daughters were glad for their special McDonald’s memory with their daddy (which is actually kind of creepy if you think about it) rather than the actual response which would have been to kill the bastard where he stood. Listen, if he did something like that because he was so threatened by his daughters burgeoning sexuality that he’d break his own TV set, lord knows what other creepy passive aggressive controlling games he pulled over the years. Really he’d be very lucky if he died peacefully not smothered by a pillow in a nursing home by one daughter while the other kept watch in the hall.
Back to Elvis – I have a lot of Elvis records but the only ones I’ve listened to on a regular basis are the Sun Sessions – the double CD of his top hits and a collection of Blues Covers he did: Reconsider Baby. The rest – well I got them at Half price when I was working for a company that through a complicated train of events ended up owning RCA Records and with cd’s at that time, I was like Hunter Thompson with drugs “not that we needed all that for the trip but once you lock into a serious drug collection the tendency is to push it as far as you can.” (Fear & Loathing in Los Vegas). – having spun them a few times you get the feeling that Elvis would have sung the phone book if you plopped it in front of him and started playing music.
Anyway his death in 77 marked what seemed like the end of something – what I’m not sure, maybe the emergence of Punk but if that was the case why did the clash honor Elvis’s memory with their London Calling Album cover?
Actually the Brit’s feelings about Elvis are worth an essay on its own.
Got to go – have a few things to work on.
Peace love Hound dog.
It was – dead Elvis is bigger than Elvis ever was when he was alive except for the moment he first burst onto the national scene and scared the living daylights out of everybody. (It’s hard to remember just how panicked the powers that be were by this kid.)
I wander all over the track thinking about Elvis – there was this stupid McDonald’s ad a few years ago where a woman is remembering the time Elvis was going to be on the ed Sullivan show . She and her sister were ecstatic with anticipation but the TV broke so her dad took them to MacDonald’s for burgers.
The kicker is that years later they found out that their dear old dad had purposely broke the set so his daughter’s purity would not be imperiled by the Heathen shakings of hips Ed wouldn’t show.
The commercial painted the idea the daughters were glad for their special McDonald’s memory with their daddy (which is actually kind of creepy if you think about it) rather than the actual response which would have been to kill the bastard where he stood. Listen, if he did something like that because he was so threatened by his daughters burgeoning sexuality that he’d break his own TV set, lord knows what other creepy passive aggressive controlling games he pulled over the years. Really he’d be very lucky if he died peacefully not smothered by a pillow in a nursing home by one daughter while the other kept watch in the hall.
Back to Elvis – I have a lot of Elvis records but the only ones I’ve listened to on a regular basis are the Sun Sessions – the double CD of his top hits and a collection of Blues Covers he did: Reconsider Baby. The rest – well I got them at Half price when I was working for a company that through a complicated train of events ended up owning RCA Records and with cd’s at that time, I was like Hunter Thompson with drugs “not that we needed all that for the trip but once you lock into a serious drug collection the tendency is to push it as far as you can.” (Fear & Loathing in Los Vegas). – having spun them a few times you get the feeling that Elvis would have sung the phone book if you plopped it in front of him and started playing music.
Anyway his death in 77 marked what seemed like the end of something – what I’m not sure, maybe the emergence of Punk but if that was the case why did the clash honor Elvis’s memory with their London Calling Album cover?
Actually the Brit’s feelings about Elvis are worth an essay on its own.
Got to go – have a few things to work on.
Peace love Hound dog.
posted by Unknown at 11:51 AM
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