"They wanted facts, Facts!"

[Neil.]

Hell-oooo! I know I said I wouldn't post anymore, but my promises are as thin as a Rizla paper! I do want to post again now that I've read more entries.

So true that fans are entitled to criticise as well as praise their heroes - it's all part of the cut and thrust of fandom. Obviously I'm a major fan, and I think he's a genius, as I've stated about a zillion times, so I come to praise Elvis, not to bury him... but I've also slagged him off, too, for various reasons, on this very message board.

But I'm seriously baffled if anyone here has any genuine concerns that Elvis might be a racist. The portentous tone, head-shaking atmosphere and sheer length of some comments suggest a serious and grave worry about our Elv, when the Columbus incident was so clearly just a drunken pissing contest between a new young British artist and some older, 'establishment' American artists. It's mystifying to find the incident still being taken seriously. This was clearly a young man trying to offend and outrage for the sake of it, so the desire to talk about it gravely, in such seemingly worried tones, over thirty years later, as though Elvis might actually be a racist, is puzzling to say the very least.

I've no idea what prompted this discussion, as this subject wasn't in the air, but anyway, it's heartening to find out that the topic wasn't brought up deliberately and mean-spiritedly on Elvis's birthday in order to cause a stir and piss other fans off during an (admittedly minor, in the scheme of things) celebratory moment.

[the_platypus]

(drunken rambling deleted)

[the_platypus]

(drunken rambling deleted)

[the_platypus]

Post sober, people.

[Hawksmoor]

If Elvis was Hitler, would you still like his music?

I have no idea. But that is somewhat akin to asking 'if your fingers turned into cucumbers, would you eat them?' in as far as the hypothesis is so far removed from anything in the real world as to make it a waste of time discussing it.

[macguffinman]

I agree that no psychoanalysis is needed to understand the Columbus incident. It was just a stupid drunken moment in time.

As far as long-term effects, however, I think it's one of the best things that ever happened to EC and to us (or at least me) as fans. It's not hard for me to imagine Elvis, unchecked, having Armed Forces lodge up high in the charts, to be followed by a soundalike album, and then for him to (worst-case) die young from drugs and drink. (I may think this way, except for the "soundalike" part, because my other favorite musician is Jimi Hendrix.) I can't quote chapter and verse, but I've read interviews where Elvis has spoken of how Columbus prompted him to take a step back, and begin to consider both his artistic choices and the way he lived his life differently--not in an immediate night-and-day way, but as the beginning of a process that hadn't started yet. I think of it as a wake-up call.

[verbal gymnastics]

Interesting but not something I'd agree with.

[A rope leash]

Hawksmoor...

Hitler was an art student. He painted landscapes and such. These paintings still exist.

So, my question isn't so far removed from "reality". I'm just making a point about seperating the art from the artist.

hitler.jpg (10.48 KiB) Viewed 8692 times

By Adolf Hitler.

Do you like it?

[jardine]

I like it IF i don't think much about it. However, works of art are not just visual objects with visual characteristics, just like songs are not simply auditory objects with auditory characteristics. When I listen to e.c.'s stuff, I don't just hear sounds. I hear connections, references, histories of musical overlaps; i hear his own past in his new stuff. I think about what I'm hearing as part of hearing it well, and part of what I know is his musical life and threads of his biography, rumored or otherwise.

I agree that the art is not the artist, nor is it reducible to the artist's intent. I can hear Duke Ellington's East St. Louis Toodle-Oo in Jimmy Standing in the Rain whether elvis meant it or not, and I can think about and make a case for that connection as part of the work itself. But the separation of the art and the artist doesn't mean that the art is simply floating around worldless and without reference beyond its sight or sound. This is why, when an artist's work becomes, shall we say, weaker as they age, it is difficult to hear their older, better work without some taint of the knowledge of what comes next (for me, e.g., both McCartney & Lennon post-split). Separating is an important idea, but it wobbles and varies depending on the time, the case, the circumstances, the history, I think.