Tonight I am with you, Elvis （by Pro. Wu）

Tonight I am with you, Elvis
 

　　-Are you lonesome tonight
　　-Do you miss me tonight?
　　…
　　I don’t know when, I can’t remember where. But it must be a night when I was very lonely, this song struck the inner depth of my heart. I was submerged in the darkness, with a glass of beer, sipping the loneliness, and the melancholy melody of this song.

　　Tonight, for another time, I was plunged into loneliness at a place where I have few friends or acquaintances, at a time when I don’t know how much I should be dressed: I feel too hot if I am dressed a little more, but cold if a little less. At such a time, such a place, the melancholy melody is ringing in my mind again. I want the song to flow into my heart when I am wrapped in loneliness.

　　I went to an MP3 website to download the song that has been haunting me whenever I was alone. But I did not know its title. I keyed in “are you lonesome tonight?” to try my luck, to query whether the song is there.
　　I found I was praying when I was waiting for the result of my query, which at last appeared after what must be an hour:
　　Song: Are you lonesome tonight?
　　Singer: Elvis Presley
　　Then I quickly set out to download the song as if it could get a drowning man out of the pool of loneliness. Some minutes later, the familiar melody is ringing again.

　　-Are you lonesome tonight?
　　-Do you miss me tonight?

　　The measured tone of the song, the magnetic voice of the singer seems to me to possess the soothing power to tranquilize a restless heart. It is precisely an echo of my feeling at this lonely hour, at this alien place.
　　Elvis Presley? Sounds very familiar. “The Cat King”? Suddenly I had an impulse to know more about this man, who has the power of rendering a lonely man warmth and consolation at a dark night.
　　While the 5 ants of my Netants are busy downloading some other songs of his, I went to another website to get more information about him.
　　This is something really rare in me. Frankly, I am not an idolater of singer stars even though I enjoy listening to songs. I belong to the men who are never curious of the cow when drinking milk. If a song is touching and moving, I will enjoy the song while ignoring who is the singer. Besides, I think the real artists are the musician, the lyric writer, but not the singer: he or she is only a transmitter of the power originating in the creative works of the musician and the lyric writers. The singers have already got too much limelight and spotlight. But this time, it’s different. After all, few artists are possessed with the power of moving me, touching me, shaking me and haunting me so much.

　　-You know someone said that the world's a stage
　　-And each must play a part.

　　Again, the dark night found me have a glass of beer in hand, sipping the loneliness in an alien place, but in the warmth of Elvis’s songs.
　　Thanks to the efficiency of the internet, in a few minutes I know more about Elvis than I have in the past years of my life. I know he was a man rising from poverty and obscurity. His unique vocal style, demonstrating both outstanding range and the influence of black music, was ‘discovered’and 'packaged' by a studio manager when Elvis was recording some songs to his mother as a gift. His records won him immediate success and soon he had far more money than he knew how to spend them. The insatiable manager took him to endless road shows from one city to another, from one film to another, in spite of his deteriorating health. He died in 1977, of a mysterious heart attack.

　　-Fate had me playing in love you as my sweet heart.
　　-Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance
　　-You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue

　　To some extent, Elvis had been a baby standing in the shadow of his mother’s love and his love of her. What was said and done by his mother became the motto guiding and regulating his life. His mother told him to share what he had with his sisters, brothers and friends. So he generously shared what he had with others: he sent one after another Cadillac as if they were Barbie dolls; he threw the costumes he wore on performance shows to the crazy fans as if they were not worthy of thousands of dollars. Love is the eternal theme in Elvis’ songs. His most famous album was ‘Love Song’. He had a Oedipus love to his mother. His mother was dead, because of missing her son when Elvis was serving in the army. Before her dearth, he had been at her bedside for 36 hours until she pleaded him to take a rest. But she chose to close her eyes right at this hour: the love between the mother and son was thus epitomized and sublimed at this moment. The pillar that had been supporting him lifelong collapsed with the death of her mother. There was a discernible change in his singing style with her death: the crazy, wild Elvis was gone, in his place there stood up a melancholy and plaintive Elvis.  His own love story and marriage was also as legendary and as his life. When he was at a party in Germany, he met a 14-year-old girl and they stared at each other and he was electrified at the sight of her and decided that the girl would be his lifetime’s partner. After he was back to the U.S, he asked the girl’s parents to permit him to bring her up at his home and to send her to the best school in Memphis and they didn’t get married until seven years later when the girl was 21. Fate had him playing in love the girl as his sweetheart.
　　Elvis’ love is masculine. As straightforward as in ‘I want you I need you I love you’, as definite as in ‘Don’t say don’t’, as tender as in ‘love me tender’ and as melancholy as in ‘that’s when your heartaches begin’, and as penetrating as ‘are you lonesome tonight’. He is a man living on love. His world rose and collapsed with the gain and the loss of love.

　　-Then came act two, you seemed to change and you acted strange
　　-And why I'll never know.
　　-Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
　　-And I had no cause to doubt you.

　　I feel very surprised that Elvis’ songs are categorized as rock music. He was so different from the rock singers I know today and the songs I hear tonight are more blues than rock. Melancholy, gentle, natural, they drip and flow into parching hearts. Along with the Beatles, he was amongst the rock singers of the first generation who made rock accepted by the world. Quite unlike most of the singers in the present-day time, Elvis articulated each word of his song distinctly as if he wished his audiences would not miss anything from the messages of love carried in his songs. He never shrieked, never screamed, never rapped with noisy drums and trumpets. His unique voice stood out against the faint music in the far background. Listening to his songs is more like confiding to an old friend. It’s a truism that he belongs to yesterday history. His songs are more like a yellowish photo, awakening in one his own nostalgic memories.
　　He rose to immediate fame and popularity and he was chased and adored wildly and widely. It was told that some American women took planes from one city to another, chasing him from one performance show to the next. His voice and dancing was packaged to be sexy and seductive, something rare and unacceptable at his time. When he was called by the country to serve in the army, his fans launched a campaign to stop it. Here is an excerpt of what his ardent fans wrote to President Eisenhower to show their concern to their idol in the Army:
　　Dear President Eisenhower, My girlfriends and I are writing all the way from Montana, We think its bad enough to send Elvis Presley in the Army, but if you cut his side burns off we will just die! You don't no how we fell about him, I really don't see why you have to send him in the Army at all, but we beg you please please don't give him a G.I. hair cut, oh please please don't! If you do we will just about die!
　　His success came too quick for him to know how to cherish it. His wealth accumulated too much for him to know how to spend it. He started his affluent buying: he bought horses bought cars bought houses bought planes, he hunted he drank he rode he corrupted until he got fat and his fans were taken over by the Beatles.
　　His marriage last for another five years until his wife found that she could not bear staying alone one night after another when Elvis was singing to millions of his idolaters, night after night, place to place. Even though Elvis led a loose life, like almost all the pop singers, this woman did have a place in his heart: they lived together for twelve years, which was hard to be disposed of as if it were tissue paper. Two most important women in his life were now gone and his life was in a mess.
　　But he was a king.
　　He started to sing again, from one city to another. Millions of fans returned back to watch his performance, to cheer and scream for him. He sang and sang until he was burnt in the fire of art when he died of an heart attack in 1977. Even though he was dead, he was the richest dead man. His records and albums are still being sold millions. And thousands and millions of fans from all over the world came to visit the place where he used to live every day.

　　-Now the stage is bare and I'm standing there
　　-With emptiness all around
　　-And if you won't come back to me
　　-Then make them bring the curtain down.

　　Elvis is gone. Sorry that I didn’t know him when he was alive. Sorry that I didn’t know he was the man consoling and soothing me when I was alone and lonely. I don’t know whether I was touched by the man Elvis or the singer Elvis. Maybe I won’t adore him like a real idolater, collecting all his albums, putting his photos on all the walls of my room, watching one film after next starring him, neither would I spend a sleepless night to be at his soul on the day of his death, as thousands of his fans did this August. But whenever I was alone and lonely, I would confide to him, listen to his melancholy and desperate melody, sipping in the darness the taste of loneliness mixed with beer, or the beer mixed with loneliness.
　　Cheers, Elvis, tonight I am with you.
　　May your soul be at peace in the heavens.

　　-Are you lonesome tonight?
　　-Do you miss me tonight?
　　...