You can either check the attached instructions or read below. I will upload the lecture notes once I hire you.
Below, I have quoted a prominent rock critic, Greil Marcus, writing about Elvis’ cultural
significance as it appeared to him in the 1970s. Your task in this essay is to respond to his point
of view in a manner that demonstrates understanding of the cultural context surrounding Elvis.
Please be sure to do the following:
(i) Indicate your own position on these issues. In doing this, you need to show an understanding
of why Marcus might say what he does, and then give reasons for accepting or rejecting his
views (or both).
• Be sure that you spend sufficient time both evaluating Marcus and developing your own
point of view.
• As part of this, you should do a bit of research on Marcus himself, because it’s difficult to
respond to someone’s argument without knowing who that person is and why they may
take the position they do.
• Notice that Marcus is writing about Elvis as he was in the 1970s, not only about his
1950s persona. This needs to be kept in mind in the way you evaluate his arguments.
(ii) Back up your arguments by explicitly using musical and biographical information provided
about Elvis in class (and on parts of the slides not discussed in class).
• Also, expand the scope of your argument by drawing in musical and social factors
covered by other lectures besides the Elvis lecture.
• For example, in discussing Elvis’ impact on race relations it may be useful to refer to
material from the blues and soul/funk lectures. Similarly, in considering Elvis’ move into
a pop direction, material from the lectures on the ‘in between years’ or Tin Pan Alley pop
may be helpful. The point is to be both creative and logical in finding ways to support
your point of view using course material.
(iii) Marcus’ views are heavily shaped by the pop and Las Vegas performer direction Elvis took
later in his career. In order to situate that side of Elvis’ work, you should look at two of the
performances that were mentioned in the lecture but not actually viewed in class. Be sure to say
explicitly how these relate to the question of how Elvis’ image as a rebellious mid-1950s rocker may or may not relate to what he represented later on.
Links for the performances in question, along with a few links for historical and cultural context, are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMN-1nSQv3U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steve_Allen_Show
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_(1968_TV_program)
(iv) Other outside sources are not required, but feel free to use them if you have them. You won’t
specifically lose marks if you don’t, but chances are you will gain some marks if you use extra
sources effectively.
Excerpts from Greil Marcus, “Elvis: Presliad.” From Mystery Train. Third Edition. New
York: Plume. 1990. Pages 120-175. Originally published in 1975.
“Elvis Presley is a supreme figure in American life, one whose presence, no matter how banal
or predictable, brooks no real comparisons. He is honored equally by long-haired rock critics,
middle-aged women, the City of Memphis (they finally found something to name after him: a
highway), and even a president [Richard Nixon]. Beside Elvis, the other heros of [rock music]
seem a little small-time. If they define different versions of America, Presley’s career almost has
the scope to take America in. The cultural range of his music has expanded to the point where it
includes not only the hits of the day, but also patriotic recitals, pure country gospel, and really
dirty blues; reviews of his concerts, by usually credible writers, sometimes resemble Biblical
accounts of heavenly miracles. Elvis has emerged as a great artist, a great rocker, a great
purveyor of shlock, a great heart throb, a great bore, a great symbol of potency, a great ham, a
great nice person, and, yes, a great American.
[. . .] How could he take it seriously? How could anyone create when all one has to do is
appear? ‘He looks like Elvis Presley!’ cried a friend, when the Big E stormed forth in an
explosion of flashbulbs and cheers. . .It is as if there is nothing Elvis could do to overshadow a
performance of his myth. And so he performs from a distance, laughing at his myth, throwing it
away only to see it roar back and trap him once again. . .There is great satisfaction in his
performance, and great emptiness
[. . .] Only the man who says No is free, Melville once wrote. We don’t expect such a stance in
popular culture, and those who do might best be advised to take their trade somewhere else. But
the refusal that lurks on the margins of the affirmation of American popular culture. . .is what
gives the Yes of our culture its vitality and its kick. Elvis’s Yes is the grandest of all, his
presentation of mastery the grandest fantasy of freedom, but it is finally a counterfeit of freedom:
it takes place in a world that for all its openness (Everybody Welcome!) is aesthetically closed,
where nothing is left to be mastered, where there is only more to accept. For all its irresistible
excitement and enthusiasm, this freedom is complacent, and so the music that it produces is
empty of real emotion–there is nothing this freedom could be for, nothing to be won or lost”
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