Happy Halloween! Here’s a 7 song youtube mix to help you “ring in” the holiday! Remember, the call is coming from your house!
Posts Tagged: elvis
23
Jan 09
Anatomy of a Smiths song: Rusholme Ruffians
In the interest of full disclosure, I suppose I should get it out of the way and tell you now– I’m a big, giant, freakish fan of The Smiths.
I didn’t used to be. I used to consider them overrated and even boring. I believed what people said about Morrissey, that he was the Pope of Mope, a touchstone for depressive teenagers, with flat, one-dimensional lyrics.
Then a couple of things happened. A friend played “Cemetery Gates” for me to cheer me up one night, and after I scoffed (The Smiths? To cheer me up?), I realized that she was right, and it was a beautiful, clever, cheerful song. With references to Keats and Oscar Wilde, no less.
I started giving Mozzer et al more of a chance, and a couple of years later, when I went through a particularly rough spot, I realized what fantastic companions The Smiths can be. They’re occasionally genuinely angsty, enough that you can properly empathize with them, but the lyrics are brilliant and have so many facets that you’ll find yourself laughing, or at least quirking a smile, at the most unexpected moments.
I also need to mention that Morrissey, the singer and lyricist, and Johnny Marr, the guitarist and melody-maker, are perhaps the most perfect songwriting team in all of western (alterna)(pop)(rock) history. To my personal taste I would definitely place them above Lennon/McCartney, and their break-up was certainly no less a tragedy.
Having said all this, and having recently been on the topics of both Morrissey and Elvis, I’d like to examine one of their minor gems, “Rusholme Ruffians.” If you’re unfamiliar, take a moment to listen:
19
Jan 09
Just a country boy that combed his hair
LIFE has recently made their archive of images available to be searched via Google Image Search. I was digging around today, and decided to see what they had in the way of Elvis. As expected, there were a number of photos of him in uniform, and a few of him tearing it up onstage. What I could NOT have predicted were a lot of images that looked more or less like this:
Teenage girls showing off their Elvis Presley hair styles. Taken by Grey Villet, 03/57, in MI.
Evidently LIFE did some sort of photo-essay in 1957 about how popular it was for TEENAGE GIRLS* to get their hair cut & styled like the King’s**. There are a number of photos of one girl in particular,
- “getting her cut like singer Elvis Presley”
- “examining her Elvis Presley hair styles” [sic]
- “showing off her Elvis Presley-like hair style to her friend” (who looks a lot like her grandma)
- “talking to an unidentified man”, and finally
- a man looking at two teenage girls with Elvis Presley hair styles
I know that 1957 was a very different time, being half a century ago, but can I take a moment to just say
I mean seriously, did these girls go get their hair cut like Elvis so they could then go to sock hops and MAKE OUT with each other? Did they sit in front of mirrors and masturbate, thinking of Elvis? Did very confused 15 year old boys sit in their rooms with pictures of Elvis, masturbating and thinking of their girlfriends? And how did the BOYS get their hair cut?
Getting your hair cut like your sex idol does take out the middle man***, I suppose. It’s a widely accepted fact that Elvis was smoking hot, but I guess this is our proof that his hotness cut across the board, muddling the boundaries of gender and sex and confusing the shit out of everyone. Elvis! I salute you.
*presumably straight teenage girls, at that!
**the King being Elvis, not a drag king.
***literally! ha!
