Jerry Lee Lewis made his TV debut on the Steve Allen Show. The performance is terrifying. Who else is this terrifying? I suggested the Sex Pistols on Facebook. They did, indeed, terrify. But they were almost 20 years later. Jerry Lee Lewis got there first.
But there’s more to say about this completely unhinged demonic performance.
It just goes to show you how much the world changed in just one year, how much the mainstream world capitulated to what was rising from the South. In 1956, the young phenom Elvis appeared on the Steve Allen Show. He had already caused a lot of trouble for himself with his performance on The Milton Berle Show. Headlines declared him dangerous. Advertisers threatened to pull out of any program that broadcast him. He was denounced from pulpits and school boards across the land. He was under siege. Steve Allen wanted in on all this notoreity but he wanted to undercut it too, to save his skin. So he put Elvis in a tuxedo and had him sing “Hound Dog” to an actual hound dog which … first of all forced Elvis into a static position, he couldn’t move around, he had to stay with the dog … and also completely removed Elvis’ sexual explosiveness. It’s a notorious performance for Elvis fans. Allen humiliated Elvis by putting him in a tuxedo and so his audience could haw-haw at the sight of a hillbilly playing dress up. Allen’s show was a grown-ups pooh-poohing of rock ‘n roll, a square man’s reaction to something he didn’t understand.
Well, here we all are, in 1957, just one measly year later. And Jerry Lee Lewis gives a performance far more threatening than anything Elvis ever did live on television (at least until the 1968 comeback special.) Jerry Lee Lewis makes Elvis look like a good boy. And … Elvis WAS a good boy. With a libido, yes, and one of his most subversive contributions to culture was to allow “good” boys and girls to admit how much they wanted to fuck each other. Okay, fine. But Jerry Lee Lewis was not – never was – a good boy.
Imagine tuning in in 1957 and seeing THAT come out of your screen. Jerry Lee Lewis is an Old Testament preacher, speaking in tongues. He’s a leering sex maniac. He’s a juke-joint boogie-woogie maestro. He’s also a cult leader, telling his audience what to do. He controls that crowd, bringing them up, bringing them back down. He’s a snake charmer. He’s testifying in a muddy field under a tent. He’s hollering from a pulpit. He orders everyone around. And they LOVE it.
All of this is alarming enough.
But then he stands up all of a sudden, pushing the stool behind him – and the shock waves still reverberate.
Miley Cyrus twerking doesn’t hold a candle to what Jerry Lee Lewis did here (although hers is definitely in the same continuum, and the response was – predictably – the same).
It feels like the stool – or Jerry Lee Lewis himself – is going to crash through the screen. He is going to pull down the very foundational structures of civilization, just by pushing that stool back.
None of the “explicit” stuff allowed on television now can hold a candle to the shock of this.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
I love that the mic stand is in the middle of the keyboard, and he plays around it, moving his right hand around it to play the high notes. Like my friend Jason said: “If I tried to do what he does on the piano, I’d break my fingers.”
Ha!! I know – his piano-playing is otherworldly.
“I don’t care that we have more “license” to show more explicit stuff on television now. None of that can hold a candle to how shocking this still is.” This is so SO true Sheila. Seeing half naked women doesn’t even shock us anymore and I wonder why. Is it because it has reached a point where it doesn’t affect us anymore or because the things that DO shock us are more subtle (i.e. Elvis shaking his hips.) ?. If it is the latter than it’s something that we are likely never to see again. What do you think Sheila?
Johnny – well, sure, because guys like Elvis and Jerry Lee and Little Richard were bursting out of a repressed culture where sexuality wasn’t supposed to be acknowledged. And men DEFINITELY weren’t supposed to act like they did – their brand of entertainment, where they used their sexuality as part of their act, was strictly women’s business. Women have always been sexualized. There are naked women sprawled across the Sistine Chapel. Women’s bodies/sexuality have always been “on the table” in some form or other. But men? Oh no. They didn’t use themselves like this. So when Elvis ground his hips around, and Ed Sullivan refused to show it – by filming him from the waist up – it was an acknowledgement that what he was doing was beyond the pale.
So I think a repressed culture is part of it. And I think because they were men was also part of it. And women react differently to sexualized men than men react to sexualized women. Women go APESHIT. Men sit back and nod appreciatively. I’ve been to strip clubs for men and strip clubs for women and it’s night and day, the reactions. So women SCREAMING and causing riots at Elvis’ shows was so frightening to people who had never seen that before, and had no idea that women wanted sex that badly. I mean, it sounds silly, but that was exactly what was going on. I wrote a whole piece about how WORRIED everyone was at the behavior of all those girls.
Nobody was WORRIED that GIs plastered their barracks wall with posters of Rita Hayworth or Betty Grable. Or went to strip joints.
But everyone flipped OUT when it was the girls flipping out. Destabilization of the patriarchy.
I mean, look at the 5,000 worried “think pieces” about what 50 Shades of Grey meant. Or Twilight. People still get WORRIED when women or girls, en masse, point at something and say, “We LIKE that.”
The culture caters to male sexuality, and it always has. It did so in an unquestioned manner for centuries until Elvis Presley came along. Who catered to female sexuality.
That was radical then and it is radical now.
Lester Bangs, in his famous obit for Elvis, wrote:
This is kind of what John Lennon was talking about when he said “Before Elvis, there was nothing.” Of course that’s not true. There were many people who rocked the boat in similar ways – but the confluence of post-War optimism, economic security meaning teenagers had free time and leisure in a way unprecedented, the expansion of radio technology post WWII so that these guys from the South could actually become national stars in a way that just wasn’t possible before – and also the unbelievable conformity that was so highly prized in the Eisenhower 50s – not to mention the psychotic devotion to how sweet/domestic/tame women supposedly were – all of that created a powder keg that Elvis came along and exploded.
We don’t live in such conditions now. There’s, ironically, a lot more sneering hatred of female sexuality now. I went to a Magic Mike screening last night, and it was mostly women in the audience (it was packed) – and we all screamed and hooted and hollered throughout the movie (which was super-fun). It catered to us in a friendly and sexy way, it did not demean us (so many movies demean women’s sexuality – this one celebrates it) – and it was just so fun, such a RELIEF – to watch a movie like this and not feel like the movie hates women, on some level.
So I don’t know, man. It’s a mixed bag. But what Jerry Lee Lewis is doing here STILL seems frightening and radical to me. He’s about to leap through the screen. He is a pure engine of sexual power. In a way we have reverted to a real conformist culture. The overwhelming Entourage “dudebro” thing, which is a prison for men just like the woman-as-housewife thing was a prison for women in the 50s. Men needing to be cool, in control, users, strolling through throngs of bikini-clad women with a smirk. Jerry Lee Lewis wouldn’t do that. Are you kidding me? He’d try to attack all of them. He’d cause a riot. He wasn’t “cool”, he was HOT.
Repression affects all of us.
Wow Sheila what a complete and thorough response. I couldn’t agree more. And that’s the thing, we don’t live in a repressed society anymore. We do get shocked from time to time but nothing DANGEROUS like Elvis & co. And you’re right, it was not the men’s job to be that wild or open about sexuality. It’s funny actually, that women have been appearing nude for centuries and no one bat an eye but when a guy shakes his hips everybody loses their minds. We will never know how it truly felt like to be alive in the 50s or 1956, how SHOCKING it must’ve been to see Elvis do what he did because nothing like that had been done before.
I guess the fact that Elvis had this raw energy and sexuality combined with his otherworldly looks made it possible. Geez, can’t someone make a time-machine already!?
Johnny – // I guess the fact that Elvis had this raw energy and sexuality combined with his otherworldly looks made it possible. //
Ha. Yes, I think that’s right – all of these factors had to come into play. Bill Haley had a huge rock ‘n’ roll hit the year before, with Rock Around the Clock – but he (no offense) looked like a Dad figure. Elvis was young and beautiful. The women went NUTS. And all the guys around them were like, “Uhm … women feel this way about sex? Since when??”
Since forever. Elvis knew it, and did not judge it, and treated it all like it was fun. He was a friendly sexual figure – somehow. He made it safe for girls to come out and play.
And ironically – Jerry Lee was actually TOO wild, and his career suffered as a result!
This is so great Sheila and of course I agree with everything you said. I can’t imagine how shocking this must have been when it first exploded into living rooms across the country. Made more dramatic because in those days it was pretty much one TV per household in the living room where everybody gathered. I just imagine a R. Crumb looking bow tie daddy sitting in his chair smoking a pipe and reading the paper not really paying attention while his wife scurries about still in her apron and the teenage daughter and little brother are on the floor in front of the blurry tv screen…then this comes blasting into their living room, the father puts paper down and tries to process what in the hell is happening here, he looks at the screen and sees a complete wild man, at first he thinks it’s a joke because JLL looks so damn unhinged, then he looks at his daughter who is starting to rock and back at the screen trying to figure out what’s happening and he instinctively percieves this as a threat, especially to his daughter.
I always think of my same fantasy living room set up for the 50’s Presley TV appearances and in that serene all American setting when even Elvis singing “ flip flop and fly, don’t care if I die “ seems like a threat or call to arms of sorts, like he’s saying to teenagers who cares about the tomorrow?, let’s just rock out tonight and live for today, consequences be damned, being free of these shackles of repression will be so thrilling and exhilarating it’s worth dying for. That completely blows up what most were taught to aspire to back then and some deranged hillbilly cat is directly undermining everything the kids were raised to believe, that restraint and patience etc was the way to go. Not making my point very well but I know you know what I mean, even what was once innocuous lyrics like “flip flop and fly, don’t care if I die” all of a sudden when combined with his sneer and hyper sexual presentation could even take on extra importance. Then here comes Jerry Lee and at one point as he is letchimg around he dramatically looks down at I assume his shaking leg but with the camera angle it could just as well been his crotch as he looks back up into the camera haha, you’re right it is
terrifying!
This belongs in a Jerry Lee journalistic greatest hits, where you said everything I was trying to say in 10,ooo more words, should have just copied and let it be.
“Imagine tuning in in 1957 and seeing THAT come out of your screen. Jerry Lee Lewis is an Old Testament preacher, speaking in tongues. He’s a leering sex maniac. He’s a juke-joint boogie-woogie maestro. He’s a cult leader, telling his audience what to do. He controls that crowd, bringing them up, bringing them back down. He’s testifying in a muddy field under a tent. He’s hollering from a pulpit. He orders everyone around. And they LOVE it.”
ANDY. I have been very bad at responding to comments on my site this week. I love your comments so much! This one’s a doozy!
// he dramatically looks down at I assume his shaking leg but with the camera angle it could just as well been his crotch as he looks back up into the camera haha, you’re right it is
terrifying! //
hahaha so true. He is just a MANIAC in this performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMHjItzsNKs
Drop Kick The Piano Stool
Drop kick the piano stool
Get it out of my way
Drop kick the piano stool
Is the last thing I say
When I was lonely
You were lonely too
When I was sad
You got me out of my blues
You made me so happy,
but now you say we’re through… Whoa!
Dropkick the Piano stool
Get it out of my way.
Drop kick the piano stool. What more can I say?
Everyone knew I was loving you
When you caught their eyes
Everyone thought you were an angel
with your beautiful disguise
Everyone wanted you from that day on, I could not
Be your only guy (to solo)
You were flying high, when I was feeling so low,
The party was almost at an end
You showed up late, and wanted a date two hours past ten
– Me Too Bayby!
I’ll…Drop kick the piano stool,
for my formal remorse
Drop kick the piano stool,
it’s a matter of course
I knew you more than once or twice
But you got me tongue tied
So please tell all your new friends hello
From your old stand by
All I can do is signify and …
Drop kick the piano stool
Get it out of my way
Drop kick the piano stool It’s all I gotta say
Drop kick the piano stool.
Drop kick the piano stool. My mama didn’t raise no fool.
Drop kick the piano stool Drop kick the piano stool
Drop kick the piano stool
Is the last thing I got to say – Goodbye Baby!
© 2018 Bill Tyler & Leonard Wolf
From Nashville Tennessee
Thank You Jerry Lee Lewis ; – )
I’ve always found it fascinating that Jerry Lee, never known for his modesty, was so thankful to Allen for helping him break through that he named one of his sons Steve Allen Lewis.
Right??
Elvis had such a different feeling about Steve Allen – he felt humiliated. He was a good sport about it, but he knew he was being made fun of. And the critics lambasted Steve Allen for what he did to Elvis.
Just one year later and Allen knew he had to go with the flow. I am so glad he had JLL on. It’s just an unbelievable performance!