The entire construct of rock and roll would look completely different were it not for Elvis Presley. Although Chuck Berry and Little Richard may have started the trend of having loud music that was meant to fill the listener with excitement, what Presley brought to the genre was an inherent star power, becoming one of the biggest sensations in the world with a face that would make any girl swoon. This kind of rockstar turned the genre into a religious experience, and John Lennon was one of his first disciples.
When Lennon first began to become involved in artistic endeavours, Presley was one of the first acts he remembered falling in love with. Even though he loved listening to the sounds of Chuck Berry during his youth in Liverpool, he remembered seeing an Elvis movie and finding his calling as a rock and roller, recalling, “When I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, it was the end for me. […] Once I heard it and got into it, that was life, there was no other thing. I thought of nothing else but rock ‘n’ roll’”.
Looking to assemble a group, Lennon would quickly form the basis of The Quarrymen, finding a partner in crime in Paul McCartney. Cutting the dead weight from the group and adding in George Harrison, the basis of The Beatles was born, with Ringo Starr arriving to replace original drummer Pete Best.
Although The Beatles never intended to last very long, they soon found themselves consuming the popularity that Presley had cultivated for himself. Despite meeting the man at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, the tide quickly turned away from Presley towards the Fab Four.
Embarking on the creative journey of anyone’s lifetime, Lennon and McCartney offered a tour-de-force on what rock could do across albums like Sgt Pepper and Revolver. At the same time, Presley was turning into a borderline parody of himself. Despite a well-received comeback special around the time of Beatlemania, Presley would soon put on weight and deliver versions of hits that made him sound like a husk of himself.
Then again, Lennon started slamming off his hero years before that period. When asked about the song ‘Devil in Disguise’ in 1963, Lennon thought that the ‘King of Rock and Roll’ had started to wane, telling Juke Box Jury, “I used to go mad on Elvis, like all the groups, but not now. I don’t like this. And I hate songs with ‘walk’ and ‘talk’ in it — you know, those lyrics. She walks, she talks. I don’t like that. And I don’t like the double beat: doom-cha doom-cha, that bit. It’s awful. Poor ol’ Elvis”.
Despite being a foundation of his childhood, Lennon seemed to have grown out of Presley’s shadow, explaining, “Well, I’ve got all his early records, and I keep playing them. He mustn’t make another like this. But somebody said today he sounds like Bing Crosby now, and he does. I don’t like him anymore”.
Lennon would even use various digs at Presley when looking back on his career, referring to the time of filming the movie Help! As his “fat Elvis period”. Granted, that first love never goes away, and Lennon would adopt the same Presley-style vocal delivery up until the release of his 1980 album Double Fantasy. Presley may have come a long way from his prime, but Lennon still remembered the man who lit a fire in him singing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.
