Post from Brian B (posted by The Prof on his behalf)

An Elvis for Everyone, A King for None

There is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose, and in 1968 Elvis was running the risk of losing that which had once given the young, snarling hillbilly the power to define American culture throughout his lifetime and for decades after. In describing the 1968 comeback special, Greil Marcus creates an atmosphere of tenuous uncertainty that makes it seem as though Presley’s audience, along with history as a whole, would not be forgiving The King this time around if the show turned out to be anything but his best. It was almost certain that, “if this show died, little more would be heard from Elvis Presley” (125). Aware that 1968 was his last chance to shed the family friendly sell-out aura that had come with years of poorly scripted Hollywood star-vehicles, Elvis knew what it would take to make him once again relevant in contemporary music. In opening the discussion of Elvis by looking at the comeback special, Marcus makes an implicit claim as to what it was that made him the impetus for the musical big bang that would open the door for every greasy-haired kid playing a jangly guitar.
The author does this by associating the ‘68 show with Presley’s mid to late fifties heyday and finding what it was in each that made him great. In both cases, it comes down to danger. In the fifties, Elvis was dangerous because of the cultural space he occupied. He was too black for country radio and too much a hillbilly for R&B. The article claims that, “even if Elvis’s South was filled with Puritans, it was also filled with natural-born hedonists,” which is exactly the audience he was playing to in 1956 (131). To the people who were able to identify with him, Elvis embodied, “that will to throw yourself all the way after something better with no real worry about how you are going to make it home” (132). There was a reckless abandon to the man’s image and also in the way he presented his music that struck a chord with the restless youth he was singing to.
By the sixties, however, Presley seemed to have traded the role of spokesman for a troubled southern youth for the life of a mainstream Hollywood pretty boy (not to mention a one-trick pony as he was singing the title song to nearly every film he appeared in). Marcus points this out in his music by saying that, “Elvis’s presentation is fixed. The glorious oppression of that presentation parallels the all-but-complete assimilation of a revolutionary musical style into the mainstream of American culture, where no one is challenged and no one is threatened” (123). To Marcus, for Elvis to be Elvis he has to be threatening and dangerous, and the fact that, “complete assimilation really means complete acceptance” means that the Elvis that had developed in Hollywood was encompassing everyone while threatening no one (123). Walt Whitman, yes. Sid Vicious, no.
This set the stage for 1968 as the writing on the wall gave the comeback special the urgency that was needed to make Elvis dangerous once again. “No one has ever heard him sing like this,” Marcus notes of the show, “not even his best records suggest the depth of passion in this music,” and a line from a Howlin’ Wolf cover that he sings, “When you see me runnin’, you know my life is at stake” sums up exactly what is taking place on stage (126). Elvis is singing for his life, his legacy, and himself in the comeback special, and with his back to the wall as it is, he again becomes as dangerous as ever.