Playing the Elvis Game

Elvis signing autographs at the gates of Graceland

One of the best byproducts in devoting myself wholeheartedly to whatever obsession sweeps me away is hearing from others, who either are already obsessed, or who get swept away in it as well. That’s always been so much fun. In writing about Elvis Presley, who is obviously such an important figure, the responses have been particularly intense. If I had to put a label on it, I would call it “personal”. People have very personal responses to him. He is wrapped up in their childhood, their faith, their memories of their father, grandmother, aunt. He reminds them of their youth, when they listened to him on the radio. There is zero distance. The only person I can think of who compares, in terms of the strength of the almost universal personal response, is John Wayne. When I write about John Wayne, people leave comments on my site about their grandfather, about America, about their hopes and dreams. It’s personal. They love him as an actor, but the response runs on a much deeper more primal vein. Presley has that. He is so interwoven into the culture (not just American) that it can be difficult to figure out how to properly react to him at all. He is a legend. But he was also a dude with pimples on his back getting X-rayed at his induction into the Army. He’s a myth. But he’s also the guy who got laughing so hard during filming a scene in Paradise Hawaiian Style that he laughed nonstop for four hours. The entire day was lost. A little girl who was in the movie said later, “I never saw a grown man laugh for so long.” He was the growling sex beast in the Comeback Special and also the guy who was so modest that even many of his girlfriends never saw him naked. He’s the guy in black leather on a motorcycle and also the guy who felt compelled to wake Lisa Marie up with an impromptu hand-puppet show because he felt so horrible the only time he ever spanked her. He sang “Baby Let’s Play House”, he sang “Love Me Tender”, he sang “The Impossible Dream”. I think it’s probably pretty obvious my view on him, and who he was – at least as a performer, and how he related to his work. I prefer to swallow him whole. Ahem. By that I mean, all parts, all eras, flaws, genius, and perversity. It’s all good to me. Sorting all of this out can be confusing and in many ways, the image has won the war. There is, of course, the music and the movies. You can just go to the source. But still: when we talk about Elvis, we often are talking about ourselves.

So today I came across a post written by someone who comments here regularly, Bybee. Her site, Naked Without Books, is devoted to discussions of literature and various book challenges she participates in. She’s a lovely writer.

Last week, she wrote a post called The Elvis Game which filled me with nostalgia for my own childhood (anyone who references listening to Promised Land on 8 track has my devotion) and also made tears of laughter stream down my face. Please go read the whole thing. In third grade, she and her friends made up something called The Elvis Game, and her description of it is hilarious. I am still laughing about Elvis as a math teacher, singing the multiplication tables to the tune of Love Me Tender. Why do I love this so much??

I am filled with a burning desire to play The Elvis Game now.

And deeper level: what a natural innocent understanding of the freedom and release that Elvis Presley represented. These little kids got it. And what a creative awesome way to express it.

The last paragraph brought tears of another kind to my eyes.

Bybee, thank you so much!