Before the first tidal wave of Beatlemania crashed over the entire globe, the future Beatles were among the countless admirers of Elvis Presley, the American rock ‘n’ roller with the warbly voice and wobbly hips. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was a major influence on the Liverpudlian band that would eventually start to rival the “Hound Dog” singer.
But on March 24, 1958, something about Elvis died in the future Beatles’ minds.
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John Lennon Once Said Elvis Died After This Major Life Moment
Elvis Presley inspired rock musicians around the world, and the Beatles were certainly no exception. John Lennon and George Harrison both cited hearing Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel” for the first time as a pivotal moment in their lives. “I could hardly make out what was being said,” Lennon said. “It was just the experience of hearing it and having my hair stand on end. We’d never heard American voices singing like that. They’d always sung like Sinatra or enunciated very well. Suddenly, there’s this hillbilly hiccuping on tape echo and all this bluesy background going on. We didn’t know what the hell Presley was singing about. To us, it just sounded like a noise that was great.”
However, something shifted in the Beatles’ mind after Elvis reported for Army duty on March 24, 1958. When he entered the M&M Building in Memphis, Tennessee, he lost some of his rock ‘n’ roll appeal to the lads from Liverpool. “Up until Elvis joined the army, I thought it was beautiful music,” Lennon recalled. “Elvis was for me and my generation what the Beatles were to the Sixties. But after he went into the army, I think they cut ‘les bollocks’ off. They not only shaved his hair off, but I think they shaved between his legs, too. He played some good stuff after the army. But it was never quite the same. It was like something happened to him psychologically.”
“Elvis really died the day he joined the army,” the late Beatle continued. “That’s when they killed him, and the rest was a living death.”
The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll Later Denounced The Beatles
Elvis Presley becoming an employee of the U.S. government soured his leather-clad, devil-may-care persona to the future Beatles in 1958. Twelve years later, Presley’s involvement with the government would once again leave a bad taste in the British rockers’ mouths. On December 21, 1970, Elvis met with former President Richard Nixon and denounced the Beatles, calling them “a real force for anti-American spirit” and accusing them of taking drugs.
“I felt a bit betrayed by that, I must say,” Paul McCartney later said. “The great joke was that we were taking drugs, and look what happened to him. He was caught on the toilet full of them! It was sad. But I still love him, particularly in his early period. He was very influential to me.”
Bandmate and drummer Ringo Starr had similar sentiments. “That’s very sad to me, that he felt so threatened that he thought, like a lot of people, that we were bad for American Youth. This is Mr. Hips, the man, and he felt we were a danger. I think that the danger was mainly to him and his career.”
Photo by Bettman/Getty Images
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