A lonely songs stands and wiggle in something that resembles a boxing ring. He looks like a fish on land – without a band, without fans. The audience is more or less brought in from the street.

He is dressed in a tight, black leather suit with pusteegenskapene to a wetsuit. The leather from sticking to the body. He needs help to get it off afterwards. Sweat runs. The hair that was arranged in perfect breathtaking, has fallen down in the pan.

Photo: AP/Scanpix Show more

it’s nearly a fallen hero who grabs for the microphone. He, who owned the charts, has not sold properly with discs for many years. Even longer has it been since the last concert. He has spent time as a hostage in Hollywood, recording a scores lettbente B-movies, and made his manager richer.

Meanwhile a new generation has revolutionized the rockmusikken with art, politics, acid, colors, blues and noise. The Beatles release “White Album”, Rolling Stones “Beggar’s Banquet” and Jimi Hendrix “Being Burnt”.

But our man has no new music to promote. He barely heard the new music. He should just be the main character in an entertainment program on TV, sponsored by a well-known symaskinfabrikant: “SINGER presents ELVIS”.

Plan was to create a christmas show for the whole family. It was fortunately averted. A TELEVISION producer with integrity and the balls won stirreleken against the manager Parks. He wanted to show the real Elvis. Not pappfiguren. It should be a moment of truth.

But there was something more. A revelation.

America got to experience the Phoenix rises from the ashes in black leather: Elvis Presley reborn as The King of Rock’n’Roll – more powerful and more charismatic than ever.

He sings like a god. He looks like a god. (Is there any more beautiful man in the history of the world than Elvis in ‘68? I’m heterosexual, but I doubt.) And he turns loose. It is a maktdemonstrasjon. Elvis has been gone for seven years. But takes 50 minutes to reduce the all of their followers in the subject to læregutter.

the Beatles had melodies. Dylan had the lyrics. Hendrix had gitarsoloene. Elvis had not even your own songs. But he had the voice, leppa, the gaze, the body, the charm, style, and sex appealen.

And of course the roots, which were best forward when he got to sit together with his old fellow musicians, playing acoustic guitar, singing favourite songs, share stories and tall tales. Where and when was the concept of Unplugged invented . And it was getting close to reality TV. The men licenses hardly the audience, they play for each other, like they used to do in the living room or the locker room.

But Elvis was also a showman . He gets up and go “One Night” alone on electric guitar with his foot on the chair. Never have any rocket so raw, with so slender means. He almost hisses in anger: It’s been too lonely to long! Greil Marcus takes out the big words about this version in his bokklassiker “Mystery Train” (1975):

“No one has ever heard him sing like this. Not even his best discs are near the passionate depth in this music. (…) If ever there was music that bleeds, then there was this.”

Music that bleeds! But the world’s perhaps the greatest writer get not with themselves that the music also laughs. Elvis-natured kidding and joking through the whole number. As if he does not take his own hudløse performance seriously. He alternates between authenticity and game, in and kødd, as if there was any difference.

And speaking of duality. Who is the black preacher in the white dress to end the show? Elvis was instructed by Parker to sing “Happy christmas”(!). Instead, it was “If I Can Dream”, a contemporary song about peace and fraternity, inspired by the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Elvis sings without filter, bend your knees, wave their arm. Totally immersed, almost obsessed. Finally, having given all, the promises he arms. Not in trump, but in exhausted relief.

But Elvis wouldn’t be Elvis if he is not also gave up going to the sentimentaliteten. And, perhaps, is the ballad “Memories” the most remarkable number in the entire show. And the most misunderstood. Greil Marcus writes: “It is a rotten song. Begravelsesmusikk. Or even worse: the Music for a commercial for a funeral.”

And again, ignore the critic’s something important: Lærmannen have gone to the other side of the stage, away from the guys, and sat down among the girls. the Gaze he sends them are very congenial and serious. That is to say: I also have a tender point, which you.

When Elvis’ sensitive, longing page is stamped as “stupid livforenktelse” of one of the world’s leading Elvis connoisseurs, it lets us know that the male critics for too long, has been managing the King’s musical legacy. Without understanding that the passion also can take the form of pure easy listening anything Elvis knew from the first moment.

To get the languorous romance dismissed as kitsch by the rockpolitiet was not something Elvis bread (or got!). More important was the insight that was to read in the ad when the TV show was sent in the replay:

“More women age 18 two 49 watched his TV special than any other in ’68.”