John and Elvis

There is a place I can go – all I have to do is travel into my mind. It is the town where John Lennon and Elvis Presley grew up. Elvis tore through this town with the destructive force of a hurricane and John became swept up in the musical revolution that followed.

Overcoming a childhood of abandonment and the untimely death of a mother John formed The Quarrymen, the band that would eventually transform into The Beatles. Long hours of practice and performance combined with a stint in a town far away from home honed their skills to the point where they became a band of real quality. Once they received the management that would expose them to the world their success was assured.

The upward trajectory of John and his band coincided with Elvis’ downward spiral. The singer who had started the musical revolution became increasingly reliant on pills to assuage the despair at the course of his career, becoming an easy victim to be manipulated by the domineering manager who was Colonel Tom Parker. Only when Elvis rejected the conveyor belt of mediocre films and returned to his roots of live performance was there a brief resurgence in his fortunes.

Having attained the fame and fortune they had once craved, they both realized it was certainly less than they had hoped for. The pills inevitably took their toll on Elvis and it was only through turning his back on fame did John attain at least some sanity and normality. The end came too soon for both of them one devoid of hope dying of a heart attack on his bathroom floor, the other ruthlessly shot down at the start of what promised to be a new era. From the grave they still influence the dreams of today.