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The King Is Gone
Aug. 16th, 2007 01:18 amToday is the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, a fact that all the TV and radio stations will probably make a note of. His birthday doesn't get much notice as it's in the middle of January (I do believe).
Of course, I was born at the wrong time and place to be an Elvis fan. My mother was already one, as an article she wrote for my sister's short-lived newspaper has since proven. When I was born, Elvis was giving up on Hollywood and beginning to go Vegas, for career number four or five (depending on how you counted). I don't think I saw his Hawaiian concert for TV when it happened...tho' I saw some of it on Public TV a while back and it struck some long-forgotten nerves, I guess. I don't think we owned any Elvis records either.
His song's didn't come on the radio often in my childhood. In our household, we listened to AM stations till the end of the Seventies--which meant censored but low-brow selections from the pop charts, weighted towards bubblegum and novelty songs. Even with the turn to Fifties nostalgia in the wake of American Graffiti and Happy Days, the music of the time was not really getting through to where I was.
What I'm trying to say is that I didn't recognize any relevance Elvis or his work had to my life before he died. My appreciation of him has grown over the years since, though.
Cindi Lauper mentioned having fantasies and dreams about meeting Elvis...and I guess I have too (tho' they are fictitious characters, not me specifically).
And today I'll have to visit a Cadillac graveyard. What symbolism there.
FP
Of course, I was born at the wrong time and place to be an Elvis fan. My mother was already one, as an article she wrote for my sister's short-lived newspaper has since proven. When I was born, Elvis was giving up on Hollywood and beginning to go Vegas, for career number four or five (depending on how you counted). I don't think I saw his Hawaiian concert for TV when it happened...tho' I saw some of it on Public TV a while back and it struck some long-forgotten nerves, I guess. I don't think we owned any Elvis records either.
His song's didn't come on the radio often in my childhood. In our household, we listened to AM stations till the end of the Seventies--which meant censored but low-brow selections from the pop charts, weighted towards bubblegum and novelty songs. Even with the turn to Fifties nostalgia in the wake of American Graffiti and Happy Days, the music of the time was not really getting through to where I was.
What I'm trying to say is that I didn't recognize any relevance Elvis or his work had to my life before he died. My appreciation of him has grown over the years since, though.
Cindi Lauper mentioned having fantasies and dreams about meeting Elvis...and I guess I have too (tho' they are fictitious characters, not me specifically).
And today I'll have to visit a Cadillac graveyard. What symbolism there.
FP
