A love affair with Elvis

Let’s get one thing straight before I start. I spent 11 years of my life having no identity other than being one of Col. Tom Parker’s favourite kids. I typified the dumb and undiscerning Elvis fan who would buy any magazine for even the tinniest cutting about his boy and who would trump along, religiously, four or more times to see every movie in which his property appeared.

I brought all the singles, albums- even the bootleg tapes and I brandished with boyish pride the page on which Elvis and Priscilla had scrawled "Thanks Joe" for the card I had sent them when they were married. I was also ‘The official Dublin Branch Leader of the Elvis Presley Fan Club of Ireland’. And so on…

Until about five years ago when I discovered that my needs (musically, emotionally, and intellectually) were far more than could be satisfied in the fairy tale world of being only an Elvis fan. And as I shifted, the energy for my love and affection towards people and things which were more accessible, I found that U was not as dependent upon the man as I once thought I was.

I continued to but most of his albums and I maintained an interest in his career but as I grew older I began to feel ‘well, Elvis these days I can take or leave."

But then he died.

And even now, one week later I can’t believe how much my life has been affected by his death. I’ve barely moved since, and here I am again buying every newspaper for even the tinniest…

But after reading all the obituaries and assessments of his career, I realise that few writers, if any, really explored the phenomenon which is at the base of the Elvis Presley empire. -The idolatrous fan. Now someone did say to me that I am to close to see this whole thing in it’s proper perspective, that might be true, but what can do is try to give you an insider’s view into what it is like to get hung-up on any ‘artist’ to a dangerous and unhealthy degree. So I will report you can explore…

Eleven fifty six p.m., on August the sixteenth and all it took was one phone call to send my defences swirling. All I could do was say "No he’s not."

Then I walked quite calmly, back into the kitchen turned off the cooker and thought ‘This is some fucker’s idea of a joke’.

And even when I heard it on a B.B.C. news bulletin I still refused to believe it. But gradually the truth seeped in after I heard the same announcement on an American and then French radio station. And as I did, swear I felt as though someone had reached inside me and wrenched out a piece of my heart, and whatever shreds were left of my youth.

So I got drunk and listened to what seemed to be half the people of Europe phoning in their commiseration’s to Tony Prince on radio Luxembourg. Yes, of course I was crying.

And if my reaction, to you seems to have been a bit extreme, it was not as desperate as the guy in Israel who tried to swallow a handful of sleeping pills was. Not was it as desperate as the lady in Paris who tried to walk out in front of a bus or…

Look, unless you have been hiding in a cave for the past two weeks you’ll have realised that not since Kennedy’s death (if even then) have so many people been united in sorrow at the passing of a public figure. Lennon’s probably still coiled up on the floor of his New York apartment and despite the fact that too many guys are still bound to the fact to the old chauvinistic cliché that real men don’t cry’ you can rest assured that some of your heroes (Dylan, Cliff Richard, Phil Lynott, Bruce Springsteen?) were shaken by the news of Presley’s death. But then few can come forward and admit to any attachment to someone like Elvis, afraid that they will alienate a section of their audience.

But I don’t think my fan club will close down if I’d admit I was and will probably remain attached t the man because of that old reliable life force…Love. That’s right I believe it is love I feel and not idolatry and this is where I differ from to many other fans. Which is where we get out the scalpels and shovels and try to delve into this whole fan/hero worship thing.

A dolatry has its assets, like dope. Taken moderately and at the right time its effects can be quite beneficial. But taken in excess, it’s a killer.

Moderately and at the right time for me was during my early teens. The truth is that my earliest recollection of a feeling of belonging was when the cry went out for all Elvis fans to unite to fight the dreaded disease, which was spreading all the land in sixty three- Beatlemania! And a few years later I found an escape from having to face grotesque reality too squarely by being able to float away and have some ‘Fun in Acapulco’ or whatever…

Those movies? I know that 70 percent of them were inane production of Presley vehicles but (except for the gems directed by Michael Curtiz, Gordon Douglas and Don Siegal) they served a purpose in the sixties. They made Elvis a matinee idol, no worse than Roy Rodgers, Jerry Lewis, or Errol Flynn.

And even if only now we are discovering hoe unreal the Elvis Presley screen persona was (and it’s a frightening vindication of the Hollywood star system that for twenty years they could perpetuate a myth which was almost totally divorced from the actual character of the man) in those days he seemed like the kind of guy you could look up to and try to emulate. Why do you think so few Elvis fans smoke or drink and think that all you ought to do on a date is kiss?

And he not only created for me a soothing world of unreality he also provided me with a vent for teenage anger and fear. There were so many times when I felt like kicking the shit out of someone but instead I went home locked the door and bobbed like mad as he spit out the words "You’d better not mess with the U.S. Male, my friend…" But above all else he gave me music. Because of him I developed a voracious appetite for any form of music from R ‘n B to Peter T.

He gave me music, fun, laughter, and romance which is all very fine when you are fourteen. But most psychiatrists agree that idolatry becomes dangerous and unhealthy when it is carried beyond years of adolescence. In its most extreme form it negates or obliterates the ability to love anyone else.

So what about the twenty-five years old girls who wouldn’t even consider another love affair because no normal guy could ever compare with their image of Elvis Presley? What about the young man who represses his own talents because he feels he is nothing compared to Elvis? What about the loners and losers who have never really lived because they use their involvement with Elvis as a defence against becoming involved with anybody else.

It runs that deep. And don’t think I am exaggerating; though I know I may hurt some people. For more than ten years I have sat among and studied the crowds at those Elvis fan club conventions and beyond the dancing (imitation Elvis style) and the laughter, the feeling that always struck me was one of loneliness and of depression. All these people feeling through and living only Elvis.

I’m neither criticising nor ridiculing whatever insecurity drive people to such extremes. How can I? I was there for far to long, but it’s important to realise how deep this thing runs.

I myself have learned, as Dory Previn says, with some regret, that no one else can get you through the night. I haven’t outgrown all my heroes but neither am I dependent on any of them. Elvis’ death showed me that. And anyway, above Cohen Previn, Scott Engel, or even Elvis I believe in myself.

And that unfortunately seems to be the faith, which is lacking in so many Elvis fans. But perhaps now with the figurehead gone, perhaps the empire will crumble and a million people will just have to learn to rechannel thier energy in other directions.

But I don’t think so. For as long as Tom Parker kneels before the dollar sign, it’s likely he’ll continue to juice the fans and fasten their hearts and feet more securely to Elvis’ own corner on the edge of reality.