Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Where Were You When Elvis Died"

I was not an Elvis fan in 1977 (I was way too cool) but the clients of the social service agency I worked for were devastated by his death. I was perplexed by the depth of their grief. Rock critic Lester Bangs wrote one hell of an obituary. 

Where Were You When Elvis Died?
by Lester Bangs
The Village Voice, 29 August 1977
There was Elvis, dressed up in this ridiculous white suit which looked like some studded Arthurian castle, and he was too fat, and the buckle on his belt was as big as your head except that your head is not made of solid gold, and any lesser man would have been the spittin' image of a Neil Diamond damfool in such a getup, but on Elvis it fit. What didn't? No matter how lousy his records ever got, no matter how intently he pursued mediocrity, there was still some hint, some flash left over from the days when...well, I wasn't there, so I won't presume to comment. But I will say this: Elvis Presley was the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual frenzy to the popular arts in America (and thereby to the nation itself, since putting "popular arts" and "America" in the same sentence seems almost redundant). It has been said that he was the first white to sing like a black person, which is untrue in terms of hard facts but totally true in terms of cultural impact. But what's more crucial is that when Elvis started wiggling his hips and Ed Sullivan refused to show it, the entire country went into a paroxysm of sexual frustration leading to abiding discontent which culminated in the explosion of psychedelic-militant folklore which was the sixties.

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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:07 pm

    I remember also being baffled by the public grief over Elvis Presley's death as a kid. That's what happens when you didn't live through a performer's heyday, I guess. He was like a Greek god in his youth, though. I mean literally – he looked like some classical statue. Only with dreamy eyelashes.

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  2. Elvis as a Greek god - now that you mention it I see the resemblance.

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