Sunday, July 01, 2007

SUNDAY IN THE HEAT WITH ELVIS



I’ll frankly admit that I think the dog-days of summer are on us here in bloody LA and the prospect of two months of rising temperatures plus all the other crap that flesh is heir to is starting to depress the hell outta me, but I guess I’ll survive it. (But is that the good news?) Peromyscus sent me an amusing clip of Elvis. And Elvis is always good for impending depression because, his story was more beaucoup fucked-up than any other in our rock & roll universe, especially when I stumbled across this clip of “Unchained Melody”, recorded about six weeks before the man’s death when he had degenerated to a bloated, sweating hulk, sans mind, sans pride, sans everything except the power of that miraculous voice. A real case of “observe thou mortals and tremble at the downfall of a god and the distance it is possible to fall.”

The secret word is Royal

4 comments:

Your driver said...

I know you've done a lot of writing and research on Elvis, but I still have to take exception to something. I'm tired of hearing that Elvis in his latter days was "bloated", "sweaty", "a hulk" etc. Was he supposed to remain a beautiful boy forever? Once upon a time, I knew quite a few beautiful boys and girls. Just about all of them are now bloated sweaty hulks and beat up old broads. Life's like that. Death's even worse.

A lot of us were about hard living and it shows. Boy howdy, at least some of us ain't dead yet.

Mick said...

But, Jon, the man was only 42. He was two years younger than Johnny Depp is today.

Your driver said...

Yes, yes, addiction takes us down hard and fast sometimes. It's sad.

Anonymous said...

The higher you climb, the further the inevitable fall.

-- the anon slacker.