Marc Spitz

i first saw this elvis video about twenty years ago when i made the obligatory pilgrimage to memphis. it was a girl named Mollia, a Japanese car, and me (i think we might have had a little black cat as well). i’d only really known elvis as a bad ass rocker, the 50s rockabilly cat and then the black leather suited elvis of this same ‘68 comeback special (and of course the vegas grotesque of his last years), but something about this song (“if i can dream”) connected in my head with the kind of music i was then (and probably still am) obsessed with. the smiths. the cure. depeche mode. it was “why are things the way they are” music, ideal for the post-high school head still reeling from the jock/nerd divide. not the hard protest music of dylan or punk rock, but rather deceptively close to british indie, which was defiant but sensitive and smart (pop smart too). i remember being agog, there in the graceland screening room, more so than at any of the artifacts, the guns and jumpsuits and drivers licenses and even the furniture… even the graves. i couldn’t get the song, mostly elvis’ gospel-sincere delivery, out of my head. ”in the ghetto” seemed kitsch. this did not. and when i think of elvis, as i am doing today, i still think of that moment. it’s not my favorite elvis song (that would be either “love me” not to be confused with “love me tender” or his version of “blue moon”) but it’s the one that hit me in the head right. i wonder what elvis would have looked like at 75. leonard cohen is about 75 and he looks killer. maybe elvis would have slimmed down and taken to wearing english suits and fedoras. made a record with rick rubin and had his’08 comeback. every band, every person… we all go through our fat elvis periods (lord knows i have) and if they don’t kill us, we leave them behind is what i’m saying. even when they were young and beautiful there was something about elvis and i believe i say this in the Bowie book, but there’s something about Bowie that was always beyond-youth. a sadness maybe? teenagers loved them but adults saw something they could relate to. they could both sell a ballad like sinatra, for example. this a roundabout way of saying, i can imagine bowie being 63 as he is today, but i can also imagine elvis being 75 (same way i was still intrigued by sinatra when he was 80). the birthday of a youth-proof artist, no matter what they look or sound like, or even if they’re dead or alive should always be a celebration. it’s a small club, these artists. there are some who have crashed it who i don’t think really belong there but i won’t bitch. not today. today’s a sort of holiday, isn’t it?