Elvis Has Possessed My Three Year Old

The King lives

A few months ago I asked my son what he wanted to watch on YouTube. Typical answers range from Elmo to Ingrid Michaelson (he's eclectic.) On that particular night he said, "Elvis." I assumed he has watched this with his dad, so I didn't think much of it, and gamely pulled up Elvis Aloha from Hawaii. Later when I mentioned it to Carl, he said, "Yeah, he asked me to watch Elvis the other night, and I assumed you had watched it with him before."

"You mean, this didn't come from you?"

"No."

We looked at each other, dumbfounded. Where, then, did our child get the idea to watch Elvis?

Whatever its genesis, my son loves the King. We have watched Elvis Aloha from Hawaii almost every day since then. I have shown Daniel other Elvis footage, the comeback concert in '68, when he's still svelte, dressed in black leather; the classic footage of him shaking his pelvis, causing uproar in 1956; we've even watched the tragic but beautiful Unchained Melody performance, just weeks before his death (at age 42!). But no, the boy is only interested in watching Elvis in Hawaii. Why? I can't really say.

The Hawaii concert makes me a little sad. Yes, he's still the King, but he's clearly high, and has begun his descent into his addiction. Yet he also has moments of clarity, charm, and talent to spare. He's not the man he was in the earlier performances, but vestiges of his prodigious gifts remain. Watching clips from the videos now, I'm struck by his lack of perfectionism, by the fact that he was still working, even in his addiction, until the very end, still offering his gifts to the world.

He may not have been sexy or even coherent all the time, but he was still singing. And my three year old loves it. Go figure.

Thanks. Elvis. You're still the King.

When I asked Daniel what Nalu should be for Halloween, he said, without hesitation, "A hunk of burning love."