The Elvis Fragments ~ A Personal Response

Dear Father Steven,

What a wonderful surprise to read your reflections today! (Perhaps especially your reference to Prof. Verkhovskoy's sensitivity to the sad fate of "Norma Jean.") It prompted me to recall that I was actually IN MEMPHIS when Elvis died, and will never forget the wild events of that week as the eyes of the world turned to Graceland.

Elvis indeed had become something of a living "patron saint" of Rock and Roll, with huge mega rock stars like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones making pilgrimages to meet 'the King' while he was still alive, and to in some way 'receive his blessing', or have conferred upon them some measure of the charisma he himself possessed. (Similar to Elisha receiving the mantle from Elijah.) My idols in my raging teens were Led Zeppelin. Somehow their musicianship, their raw power, and their pseudo-mystical side all appealed to me. But I later realized the true idolatrous nature of it all, and when in my late twenties, I sold all my bootlegs, posters, books, etc.

These sorts of fascinations are not to be taken lightly. They can exercise a domination over one's soul that can be absolutely totalitarian. For the musicians, performers, actors or stars themselves, there is certainly an implicit Faustian bargain formed, which is all too difficult to get out of, which in many (if not most) of their cases results in their being reduced to far less than they might have been, even as they are exalted more and more by their adoring fans. Truly, who cannot dispassionately look at performers like Mick Jagger or others still carrying on, and not see them as somehow sub-human, reduced to being merely an elemental power of some sort, stripped of real purpose and meaning, and only serving themselves the false idol they so eagerly set up decades ago! The ones who do not survive, like Marilyn Monroe, James Dean , Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain - and, alas, Elvis - become somehow revered by their pop worshipers, yet in truth, they were destroyed by their lifestyles and the madness and despondency that was perhaps symptomatic of their souls aching to be freed from the very lie they were so intensely living. Perhaps this captures some of the pathos Prof. Verkhovskoy was expressing.

What might Elvis have become had he survived those awful, final bloated years in which he finally died? I think the finest example we could ask for of a true survivor from among our pop idols is Johnny Cash. As the movie 'Walk The Line' so achingly renders, he could have easily perished like so many of these others, and become the country version of Elvis, Hendrix or Morrison. But somehow, through love, and perhaps we may be so bold as to say, through God's Divine Love, he survived, persevered, and was truly redeemed through a long, fruitful and devotedly faithful marriage. Cash too was a legendary Gospel artist, and all the way through to his final recordings he eloquently expressed (or chose songs that did express) the theme of the repentant sinner in the hands of a loving and merciful God. One cannot but be impressed by the intense sincerity and honesty of his mighty voice, and be moved by the obvious thankfulness with which Mr. Cash lived the second half of his life. That he somehow balanced his creative spirit with his solid Christian faith and his resolve to live as a thankful penitent the rest of his days is a profound testimony to those seeking to be true to who they are, even along the difficult, and in its own way, narrow path of being a creative Christian artist in our crazy world hurtling towards chaos and destruction. As you and I have discussed before, there are several profound examples of this kind of artistic struggler in our Orthodox tradition, including Fr. Pavel Florensky, Ivan Kireyevsky, and of course your beloved Fyodor Dostoyevsky (who himself was 'saved and redeemed' through his marriage, his wife freeing him to create his greatest works in his later years).

Once he discovered his gift, Johnny Cash never doubted what he was called to do (make music), and after being brought to repentance and saved from the path to self (and perhaps eternal) destruction, he did not adopt a false piety of renouncing his gift, but - I believe - used his gift to give glory to God as best he knew how. His witness stands as an "anti-Elvis," as one who by his patience gained his soul.

Just some thoughts prompted by your reflections...

in Christ,

Ralph (Sidway)