The emergence of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis set me thinking, self-obsessedly, about my experience of celebrities particularly in regards to their deaths. Actually, first of all it set me thinking about Lou Reed's song 'The Day John Kennedy Died', which is on his album The Blue Mask, from 1982. My initial memory was that it was the first time I'd ever heard a Lou Reed song, and that my thought was, 'This is that guy that everyone goes on about?' but geez, I was 17 in 1982 and of course if nothing else I'd heard 'Walk on the Wild Side' which came out a decade earlier though I am surprised to see, on doing a li'l research, that it wasn't a hit (at least not nationally, perhaps it was a hit in Victoria). So I listened to Lou Reed's John Kennedy song and it is a terrible song, but it's not terrible in the way I remember it. I remember it much more rambling, made up on the spot, with bad rhymes. It does have reasonably bad rhymes but it's a lot more 'folk' than I recalled, maybe everything was more 'folk' then so it didn't stick out. It's certainly something the world could have done without.
In any case, my point is that of course I wasn't anywhere when JFK was shot, but I do remember where I was when I heard the JFK song, or at least I am pretty sure I do, I was in the backyard of our house in Scott St, Hawthorn and I was listening to it on a portable radio, I think someone was actually playing a few songs from The Blue Mask; I definitely remember the song 'Women' as well from that time, and thinking 'fuck, that's horrible'. Also, 'that's a really, really, horrible song'. And, 'Christ that is terrible'. Additionally, 'what the hell was he thinking writing that song let alone singing it.' It was a sunny day. I wonder what made me persist? With listening to the radio I mean. I don't care that Lou Reed made a terrible album, or at least, not enough to question my own existence, just its.
I remember where I was when Elvis died, or when I heard about it, roughly speaking. At least I remember seeing the headlines outside the milkbar in Riversdale Road near Robinson Road, and in my recollection the headline actually didn't say 'Elvis is dead' but something like 'top pop star dies', indicative of the fact that Elvis was at that time seen as so much of a washed up oldie that his name wouldn't sell papers, but the mention of a top pop star, which he undeniably once had been, would.* That was August 1977 so I was 12 and I'm going to go with this memory, even though you'd imagine that with my interest in pop culture and the world I'd have a little more comprehension but to be fair to me, (1) before 16 August 1977 (actually, 17 August in Australia) Elvis was on the level of let's say Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly or Johnny Cash - old, long ago music from before I was born (2) the name Elvis is weird, yes, but the name Alvin also has L, V and I in the middle of it: I was confused between 'Elvis Presley' and 'Alvin Stardust'.** I didn't entirely know the difference between the two of them. I do recall the first time I became aware of Elvis Presley as an entity was from a riddle in a joke book: 'What lives at the bottom of the garden and sings? Elvis Parsley'. This is almost funnier when you don't know there is someone called Elvis Presley but it also meant that for years I had to work backwards from 'Parsley' to 'Presley' to remember Elvis Presley's name. (I note that Elvis Costello released his first album a month before EP died; I am pretty sure I had no knowledge of him).
A la Michael Jackson, once Elvis died, he was instantly a legend and undeniably perfect to many, and little kids who weren't really aware of any singer much, were suddenly besotted with him. I don't know what that's about but it's a thing.
I have probably already told you about how I found out about Princess Diana's death. It was when I was living in Hartwell and Mia and I were crossing the railway tracks there and a man came up to us out of the blue and said 'Princess Diana's been in a car accident. But she's going to be OK'. Hmm, so now I look at it I suppose that wasn't really finding out about her death, but it was finding out that something that happened to her was going to be enough of a phenomenon that strangers would talk to other strangers about it. Incidentally that's part of Lou Reed's song about JFK - that at first, he only knew that Kennedy had been shot, then he found out he was actually dead.
I have other memories of celebrity death but that'll do for now OK.
* This is the cover of the Age announcing Elvis' death; it was front page news, but not the biggest news of the day. By the way, what I was discussing above re: 'top pop star' was a point of sale poster, not a headline on a newspaper, but I don't think it was the Age's point of sale, probably the Sun. Presumably those things never get kept anyway.
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