Quotes About Elvis
Steve Allen:
“The fact that someone with so little ability became
the most popular singer in history says something about our cultural standards.”
(later)
“I happen to think he is a very solid performer and will be around a lot longer than his detractors think.”
Paul Anka:
“To command such a large following, he must be a great performer.”
Chet Atkins:
“He was electrifying. I don’t think anything like this will ever happen again, at least not in my lifetime. And I don’t think there will ever be another
man like him.”
James Blackwood (Blackwood Brothers):
“Gospel music was his first love.”
“If he had gone into gospel….he would still be alive today.”
Gov. Raymond Blanton (
“He had a significant impact on the culture and consciousness of
Pat Boone:
“There’s
no way to measure his impact on society or the void that he leaves. He will always be the King of Rock and Roll.”
James
Brown:
“He taught white
President Jimmy Carter:
“Elvis
Presley’s death deprives our country of a part itself. He was unique and irreplaceable.”
Ray Charles:
“…on
President Bill Clinton:
“Elvis was the first and the best of the rock ‘n’ roll era. He’s my favorite.”
Joe Cocker:
“Elvis is the greatest blues singer in the world today.”
Louis Couttelene of RCA:
“He was the greatest
legend of the modern entertainment world.”
Bing Crosby:
“He never contributed a damn thing to music.”
(later) “The things that he did during his career, the things that he created are really something important.”
John
“Where do you go from Elvis Presley…short of obscenity, which is against the law?”
“(Elvis is) unspeakably untalented and vulgar.”
Bob Dylan:
“Elvis recorded a song of mine; that’s
the recording I treasure the most.”
Rev. Carl E. Elgena,
“Elvis is morally insane.”
D.
J. Fontana:
“If it wasn’t for his mother, he probably wouldn’t have made it.”
Jackie Gleason:
“He can’t last. I tell you flatly, he can’t last.”
Rev. Billy Graham:
“I wouldn’t let my
daughter walk across the street to see Elvis Presley perform.”
Jack Gould, New York Times:
“Presley
had no discernable singing ability.”
Peter Guralnick:
“ ‘What do you think of Elvis Presley?’ was
the first business of social exchange, and your answer defined you politically, socially and morally.”
Patsy Guy Hammontree:
“Many people never quite gave up on the idea that Elvis was an evil force unleashed upon the land.”
Delores Hart:
“Elvis (has)…an enormous capacity to love….I think he’s terribly lonely.”
Skitch Henderson:
“Elvis
is….the Beethoven of his field…You can’t quarrel with longevity. The public is a severe critic….He established the form, the
tradition and the flair.”
Buddy Holly:
“Without Elvis none of us would have made it.”
Bob
Hope:
- “Are you kiddin’? When he started he couldn’t spell
Hedda Hopper:
- “He may be the kingpin, but in
- “I consider him a menace to young
girls.”
- “He’s the most obscene, vulgar influence on
Janis Joplin:
- “Elvis is
my man!”
Hal Kantor, Variety:
- “In the eye of the hurricane the young man took it all with unnatural good grace
and humility.”
Marion Keisker, Sun Studios:
- “This is what I heard in Elvis…. ‘soul,’ this negro sound. So,
I taped it. I wanted Sam to know.”
Ku Klux Klan member:
- “We’ve set up a twenty-man committee to do away with
this vulgar, animalistic, nigger rock ‘n’ roller bob.”
John Landau, New York Times:
- “There is something magical
about watching a man who has lost himself find his way home.”
John Lennon:
- “Nothing really affected me until Elvis.”
- “Before Elvis there was nothing.”
- “If there hadn’t been Elvis, there would not have been the Beatles.”
- “We just idolized the guy so much….He was a legend in his own lifetime.”
- “Tanks for ze music Elvis, and
long live ze King!”
Liberace:
“Don’t allow any critic or audience to get to the soul of your art. If you sing to the Lord, all of the heavens will hear you, and maybe….along the way….the mortals will too.”
Little Richard:
“He was a rocker. I was a rocker. I’m not rockin’ anymore and he’s not rockin’ anymore.”
Look Magazine:
“His gyrations….nose wiping, his leers are vulgar.”
Paul McCartney:
“Every time I felt low, I would
just put on an Elvis record and I’d feel great, beautiful.”
Jim Morrison:
“Elvis was the best,
the most unique. He started the ball rolling. He deserves the recognition.”
Eddie Murphy:
“He was the greatest entertainer who ever lived!”
Newsweek Magazine:
“Elvis was somewhat of a jug
of corn liquor at a champagne party (in Vegas)…… and his bodily motions were embarrassingly specific.”
Peter Ochs:
“The only possibility in the
Colonel
Tom Parker:
“We do not socialize. Our great social interest is money.”
“When I first met Elvis he had a million dollars worth of talent. Now, he has a million dollars.”
Helen Parmeler,
“Last night’s contortionist exhibition….was the closest I’ll ever get to the jungle.”
Dewy Phillips, Sun Studios:
“He’s a good boy….He’s always afraid he’s going to hurt somebody’s feelings.”
Sam Phillips, Sun Studios:
“Just don’t make it too complicated.”
“I knew Elvis was going to be big, but I never knew he’d
be that big!”
Gladys Presley:
“All I want is for ya to be a good boy.”
“It just ain’t like Elvis, payin’ attention to trash like that. It’s all Parker’s doin’.”
“They won’t let me see Elvis…. They’re just tearin’ my boy’s clothes off and we don’t know if he’s going to come back alive….and now
I can’t even feed my chickens. They say it’s bad for his image.”
Priscilla Presley:
“He was
the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll…a very special human being who touched our lives, our consciousness…as few men have ever done.”
Paul
Simon:
“I thought his name was about the weirdest thing I’d ever heard. I thought he was a black
guy.”
Frank Sinatra:
“His kind of music is deplorable, it’s a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac…. It
fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.”
(later) “He was a
tremendous asset to the music business.”
Cardinal Spellman,
“A new creed has been
patterned by a segment of the young people…a creed of dishonesty, violence, lust and degeneration.”
“Youngsters… were stealing soil from the stadium infield. Presley’s feet had touched it.”
Bruce
Springsteen:
“There have been contenders, but there is only one King.”
“He’s as big…as the whole dream….Nothing will ever take the place of that guy.”
Rolling Stone:
“Elvis Presley remains the quintessential American pop star, an enormous talent and a charismatic appeal beyond mere nostalgia.”
Dee
Stanley (Presley):
“Everyone around him lived a lie.”
Ringo Starr:
“He was just like one of us, none of the old
Gordon Stoker:
“Elvis never
realized just how great he was….He’d look at us and ask, ‘What is it I got?’ We’d always tell him… ‘You got what it takes, that’s
what you got.’ ”
“Vegas is what brought an end to the good years…He felt like a piece of meat
being carved up for everybody else’s benefit. Eventually, it…took its toll.”
Ed Sullivan:
“(Elvis is) a real decent, fine boy.”
J. D. Sumner:
“He…kept his feet on the ground whenever people
tried to make him into some kind of God.”
“For some he was the Devil, risen up to
claim the nation’s children.”
Rufus Thomas:
“In my lifetime, I know of only one other person who
could have that kind of magnetism, and that was Dr. Martin Luther King.”
TV Radio Mirror:
“Rock
‘n’ roll came from his heart and it ran over into his arms, legs and hips. He was the real McCoy.”
TV Scandals:
“What’s most appalling is the fans’ unbridled obscenity, their gleeful wallowing in smut.”
Al Wertheimer (photographer):
“He made the girls cry…He touched emotion…He is nostalgia….He is their youth.”
“He had this intensity
and it was the foremost aspect of his character. He had the ability to make you feel important at any moment….He was intense.”
Red
West:
“He really developed that professional country-boy act with women…we were routing them through
his bedrooms, two and sometimes three a day.”
Robert Wilson/Memphis Press Scimitar:
“The King will
live forever as the legend of rock ‘n’ roll. Men die but the legends they create are immortal…He will be remembered as nothing
short of a modern God.”
Wofman Jack:
“Two thousand years from now they’ll still be hearing
about Elvis Presley.”
Youth World (an East German communist newspaper)
“Elvis Presley was a weapon
of the American psychological war aimed at inflicting a part of the population with a philosophical outlook of inhumanity.”
Quotes
From Elvis
“We were broke, man, broke…..and we left for
“The gospel is really what we grew up with more than anything else. It’s just a part of you, if you think about it.”
(To his mother )
“I have a reverence for God, Mama, but it’s just music. It makes me feel this
way.”
( At the Eagles Nest nightclub )
“Man, if I could ever get people to talk about me the way
they talk about Liberace, I would really have it made.”
( To a
“Those people
(Eastern critics) ain’t gonna change me none.”
( At Gladys Presley’s coffin )
“I lived my whole
life just for you….Oh god! Everything I have is gone.”
( To Martin Keister, Sun Studios )
“I don’t sing like nobody. I don’t sound like nobody.”
( Interview with Hy Gardner )
“I’d
like to have the ability of James Dean….but I’d never compare myself to James Dean.”
“I don’t
feel I’m doin’ anything wrong.”
“Well, sir….you got to accept the bad along with the good….I know
that I’m doin’ the best I can.”
( To the
“There should be no draft.”
“I ain’t no saint, but I’ve tried never to do anything that would hurt my family or offend God….I figure all any kid needs is hope
and the feeling that he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe
I had contributed to the world.”
“I have not sold my soul to the devil. It’s only music.”
“I thought it was supposed to get easier but it’s getting’ worse. I hate havin’ to read what people write about me. I
jus’ hate it.”
( Regarding Jerry Lee Lewis )
“That boy can go! I think he has a great future
ahead of him….and the way he plays piano just gets inside me.”
( To his manager )
“Sure, Colonel,
whatever you say is okay with me.”
( To reporters in Las Vegas )
“The colored folks been singin’
and playin’ it just like I’m doing now, man, for more years than I know…..Nobody payed it no mind until I goosed it up. I got
it from them….I used to hear Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now. And I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel
all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.”
( To the Press )
“My first love
is spiritual music….some of the old colored spirituals from way back. (I know) practically every religious song that’s ever
been written.”
( Regarding the Army )
“All I want is to be treated as a regular GI. I want
to do my duty and I mighty proud to be given the opportunity to serve my country.”
( To his Army buddies )
“After my first picture with Hal Wallis, it’s the non-musical for me!”
From The Sixties
( To John Lennon )
“We pay the price for fame with our nerves, don’t we?”
( To a
“The image is
one thing and the human being is another….It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”
( To the Press )
“I’ve always liked challenges. I like to prove I’m better than I was yesterday…..There’s no fun in making a hit unless you deserve
it. I believe in that, and I’m trying to live by it.
“You can’t fool yourself or the public
for very long.”
“You gotta sell what you feel. That’s success, man.”
“The only thing worse than watchin’ a bad movie is bein’ in one.”
“Rock ‘n’ roll music is basically
gospel, rhythm and blues…or it sprang from that. And people have been adding things to it, experimenting with it.”
“Country music was always a part of the influence on my type of music….It’s a combination of country music, gospel and rhythm and
blues. As a child I was influenced by all of that.”
“The world seems more alive at night….It’s
like God ain’t watchin’.”
( Regarding the Press )
“A lot of these guys aren’t reporters….they’re
marksmen.”
( About ministers of TV )
“They’ll all get theirs.”
( In an interview )
“I know what poverty is. I lived it for a long time….I am not ashamed of my background.”
“Someone once called me a sissy because I was polite….There’s a ‘man’ in manners.”
“Gossip is
little talk for little minds.”
( After Sinatra bashed Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll )
“I admire the man. He has the right to his own opinions….You can’t knock success.”
( Answering Billy Graham’s criticism )
“I wouldn’t do anything vulgar in front of anybody….My folks didn’t bring me up that way. I just move with the music. It’s the way I feel.”
( To his friends )
“I never met anyone who learned by talking.”
( Regarding
fame )
“When you’re the top gunslinger in town, everybody takes you on.”
( To Colonel Parker )
“I want to be a good actor because you can’t build a whole career on just singing.”
From The Seventies
( Talking about
Marion Keisker )
“That woman was the one who had faith, she was the one who pushed me…Marion did it
for me.”
( To the Press )
“I happened to come along at a time in the music business when there
was no trend. I was lucky. The people were looking for something different….I came along just in time.”
“Everyone’s nuts! Some of us just see it more clearly, that’s all.”
“It’s more important
to believe in god than goin’ to church.”
“If your head gets too big, it’ll break your neck.”
“When I was a boy. I was the hero in comic books and movies. I grew up believing in a dream. Now, I’ve lived it
out. That’s all a man can ask for.”
“People always look good in their coffins.”
“I’d rather be angry than bored.”
“I withdraw, not from my fans, but from myself.”
“Life is about more than just drawin’ breath.”
“The only time I feel alive….. is when I’m in front
of my audience, my people. That’s the only time I feel like I’m human.”
“Dreams…..tell us
truths that we’ve got to be smart enough to interpret.”
“A man is…..
just a little boy wearin’ a man’s body.”
“Love makes crowds disappear when you’re with someone.”
(Regarding divorce )
“You can….love someone and be wrong for them.”
( Regarding racial discrimination )
“If you hate another human being, you’re hating a part of yourself.”
“Animals don’t hate, and
we’re supposed to be better than them.”
( To a Vegas fan who handed him a crown )
“I am not king. Christ is king. I’m just a singer.”
( Elvis wore a Christian cross and a Star of David )
“I don’t want to miss out on Heaven just because of a technicality.”
( When asked about being lonely )
“I am and I was.”
( To a friend )
“I’m tired of bein’ me.”
“Long after I’m gone, what I did today will be heard by someone. I just want them to get the best of what I had.”