My parents saw Elvis Presley live in 1976, one year before he died, and somehow didn’t tell me until last week. They had near front-row seats and my mom could see Elvis up close, stuffed into a white suit, gasping his way through the hits. He was sick and sweaty and slurring, suffering on the stage.
It was clear he wasn’t well. But they never thought that in a year he’d be gone. He was Elvis and they were Boomers. Elvis had always been there, and it seemed he always would be, even as he deteriorated. Whether you loved him or loved to mock him, Elvis was the star around which American pop culture orbited.
You never thought he’d just die on the toilet.
This is what it feels like to watch America in 2024. A fading star, a bittersweet song, every day feeling like a farewell tour. You are the audience but you are also Elvis: tired of performing for the benefit of people who hurt you, trying to remind yourself that the music still matters. The government is Colonel Parker, Elvis’s vicious manager, exploiting every fear.
You are never safe in America, even when you’ve made it — even when you are an “it” upon whom things are made. That’s the worst part, Elvis knew: to become a brand and lose being a person.
