The building has left Elvis...

[caddyman]

Blimey, Elvis is dead! When did that happen?

So it’s thirty years today since he waddled into his favourite khazi in Graceland and failed to come out again. Three decades on, medical science has reached a point where we know that eating deep-fried peanut butter and jam sandwiches made with an entire loaf and a couple of pounds of butter is not likely to do much for your long-term health. The 1970s were a much simpler time, though, and only weirdy-beardies went near tofu and bean sprouts.¹ Thus it was that the King of Rock’n’Roll died with his trousers around his ankles and butter on his chin; an ignominious end to the man who stole Carl Perkins’ thunder and went on to become the greatest exponent of popular music of all time²

Seriously, folks. Thirty years. Get over it.


¹I am joking, of course. The situation has not changed a great deal except that the weirdy-beardies now only rarely wear kaftans in the street.

²Except for the Beatles. And Bob Dylan. And Roy Orbison. And The Everleys. And the Rolling Stones. And The Clash. And The Police. And The Bay City Rollers<sup>3

3</sup>Bay City Rollers? Where’d they come from?

Comments

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

"rarely wear kaftans in the street"

You've evidently not been outside in recent months...kaftans are not an uncommon sight sadly. Bloody cyclical fashion.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

And just a second...The bleedin' Everly Brothers, I assume (and fervently hope) that you are joking. The only good thing about Phil and Don was when they used to beat each other up (resulting in them both having 'Ebony Eyes' BOOM BOOM)

*sigh*

Re 3:

[oldnick.livejournal.com]

Edinburgh, via a dart, an atlas, Arkansas, and Bay City Michigan.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Pick your own names, Squire.

The point was simply to suggest that he nicked one of the songs that started him off and that better performers have been around both as Elvis'contemporaries and since.

You could make the same point about the Beatles excepot that would be wrong.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

They are a very uncommon sight in my world. But then I do maintain very efficient idiot filters.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. Hmm well I'd say the same about Elvis, a lot of people were doing things *similar* to him but nobody was doing *exactly* the same thing so I don't give a lot of credence to the 'let's downplay what he did' mob. I think it's hard to really appreciate what he had going when his music is so much part of the scenery now, and after he became a bit of a parody of himself. A couple of years ago I heard an obscure recording he did that I had never heard before, it was completely new and with the veneer of familiarity stripped away I really *listened* to him properly and I found the track in question spine-tinglingly good.

[nortysarah.livejournal.com]

He was diabetic too...

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Really ? Didn't know that.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Well, you would be too, if you had spent twenty years singing such sugary, syrupy drivel as "Wooden Heart" and "In the Ghetto".

[sea-strands.livejournal.com]

While I have held little interest in Elvis as a product; the man and who he was, where he came from and the impact he had at that time does interest me.

(I feel there was a "Thankyouverymuch" missing from the end of this entry ;)

[thalinoviel.livejournal.com]

"Elvis did not die, he just went home."

bytepilot insists my kurta are really kaftans. I'm sure you've seen me wearing them. (Tofu is rank, though, unless deep fried by experts at the Chinese / Japanese takeaway.)

[boredinsomniac.livejournal.com]

Elvis is... Elvis is dead?! But how can that be? I just saw him last week at the gas station, and he seemed so full of life...