Elvis In Review

I am sitting here and a New Year has come upon us and many thoughts are swirling through my mind... it was only a few days ago and Charmaine had opened up her presents... gifts from the past brought to the present... she pops in the Aloha DVD and I am 13 years old all over again... those sad songs playing on the heart strings of so many as we all knew that Elvis' marriage was at an end... how he kept his composure and all the wonderful charitable work he had done... collecting $75,000 dollars for cancer patients... not wanting anything but love in return... he had our admiration... today he has our devotion...

...looking at him after the concert going back into the studio to work some more on his songs and having to go over and over them again until the director feels he has done them to his best ability... yes that NBC special that would again catapult him to more stardom if that was at all possible...

...the next day after Christmas another special day comes about ... but this time I am 8 years old wide eyed and visions of an old television set with static comes into focus as I remember so well that day... all black and white... with an energy that builds and builds as I sit there once more with Brillcream combed in my hair ... slicked back and hey I was not even an Elvis fan but just a child of the sixties... I tune myself in once more and with wonderment and awe take in the scenes... the real Elvis not the one that I had seen in the movies takes the stage... a nervous twitch as he continually has to unglue his lips and I laugh again... yes even though I am no longer that child I can see the childlike humour... the music that was and is so powerful... the production of a musical so out of step with the mundane of today... and I say to myself "what a wonderful world" that was and if it only today could be... if only August 16th, 1977 would not of happened... if only I was that wide eyed child again... then an image of Elvis on Ed Sullivan comes back to me... images of his movies and an image of a white hearse takes the final stage of his life and with remorse and a loss as to how to finally play this all out... I am settled with the fact that there is this little wide eyed girl sitting with me all along watching that 68 Comeback Special ... with tears in her eyes as "Love Me Tender" is playing I realize just how much his Elvis' life touched so many... how that little girl fell in love and as a woman of today keeps his legacy alive and well... :)

David