Who's going to carry the King's torch? Will it be you? I'm sure as hell not going to do it. But once the likes of Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Little Richard, Pete Townshend, and the rest of that old lot are finally dead and gone, who the hell is going to care about Elvis?
Seriously. The farther away we get from his explosion onto the rock world to his demise as a bloated Vegas also-ran, the quicker we are to forget. He's going to become that afterthought in the same way poor Bill Haley has become much of nothing in the eyes and ears of today's youth.
Yes, I'm bringing it down to the youth. When I was working not so long ago with a bunch of kids in their late teens/early twenties who would often spout things like, "I don't get the Beatles. What's so great about them? Their music isn't good." then I have zero hope for Elvis.
If anything, Elvis will continue to go down as a mocked, parodied, and ridiculed dude. And it's not as if his fans ever truly helped the cause, what with a million and one impersonators and folks who still flock to Graceland to see his tacky shit laid out like it was something truly remarkable. In this day and age of instant celebrity, Elvis is becoming more and more of a footnote. As in, "Oh yeah, that guy who sang 'Blue Suede Shoes' and liked pills." But hasn't that how it's been since the '70s?
So when all the old rock critics and musicians have dried up and blown away, we're going to be left with people like Bono to talk about, which is far worse. I mean, that guy has never done anything interesting. You need pills and a revolver, kids. A child bride and a kooky entourage who won't tell you your own shit stinks because its members like being on the dole. Go out to Vegas and die and leave a legacy that other people can cash in on with shitty little trinkets and other crap. That's rock and roll? Nah, that's just Elvis.
