Elvis was My First

Elvis was My First by Roxanne McDonald

For some of us, Elvis was the first man we loved… besides Daddy.

So it only makes sense that when an Elvis movie comes on now, as it did for me last night, we not only watch all the way through but we are catapulted to those first days of our first love affair with the most beautiful man on the planet. We are mentally moved, but more, we are viscerally returned to time, place, sound, sight, and even smell of an earliest of experiences.

I was five years old. The place was a sparsely done

livingroom in one side of a side-by-side duplex. It was bedtime, but an Elvis movie was coming on—I think Fun in Alcapuco. Maybe Blue Hawaii. I was riveted to the olive green couch, lured by the vibrancy of song (not color, for TVs were still in black and white for us)–and rather than refuse, as they did for any other request, my parents allowed me to get blankets and pillows and fall asleep there alone to a satisfying conclusion (Elvis winning the race, getting accepted by the father, saving the day, Elvis getting the girl, or better, the girl getting Elvis) and to the residuals of “Love Me Tonight.” “Marguerite”, and “Bossa Nova Baby.”Then there were the years early morning, midday, and late night forty-fives: the fragile black discs (an inch or so bigger than today’s CDs, for you who have never seen or held a “record”) with the accompanying plastic adjustor clips you snapped in so they would fit on the LP/record player post, the simple RCA label. The hunka hunkas and the love, the up-tempo and the slow, the melodious words crooned on “Love Me Tender” and mellifluous words spoken on “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

And now, forty years later, the same sensory and emotional satisfactions replay when Roustabout or G.I. Blues or It Happened at the World’s Fair comes on…as clearly and as movingly as they did those first years…. And I realize that besides Daddy, who was as handsome as Elvis and sang a mean Elvis tune at that, Elvis was my first love, the sexy, sensitive pretty boy who would set the template for all to come in his watery wake.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

| TrackBack URI
You can also bookmark this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.