The speaker of Carol Ann Duffy's poem is an imaginary figure, but the work revolves in many senses around a real person: Elvis Presley, the iconic musician often referred to as the "King of Rock." Known not only for his music but also for his charisma as a performer, his flamboyant dance and movement, and his transmission of African American musical tradition to a white audience, Presley drew both ire and frenzied admiration during his lifetime. This poem asks how the life of such a famous figure—seen to embody a style of music as well as an era of American pop culture—might have differed had his gender been different. Duffy crafts a character with the same background as Elvis who is intimately familiar with the musician and uncannily similar to him, in all ways except her gender.
Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935 to a working-class family. Unlike the version of him in the poem, the real-life Elvis Presley did not have a twin sister. However, he did have a stillborn twin brother, Jesse. Raised as an only child, he had a close relationship with his parents. Though his family was not especially religious—in contrast to the monastic sister invented by Duffy—they did occasionally attend an Assembly of God church. The Southern African American musical traditions that surrounded the young Presley—gospel, blues, and jazz—helped form the musical backbone of his later work. Presley absorbed these influences at his parents' church. After moving to Memphis as a teenager, he also encountered new music at black churches and blues clubs. While he had shown musical promise as a child, it was in Memphis that his professional career began. He released his first single, "That's All Right," in 1954, shortly after graduating from high school in Memphis.
After this, a frenzied career that spanned from music to film began. Presley blended the influences around him, including blues, gospel, and country, to create a sound that was new to many listeners. This combined with a distinctive look—slicked-back hair and flamboyant clothing—as well as with unusually provocative dancing. Presley's first number-one hit, "Heartbreak Hotel," was released in 1955. This hit was followed, in quick succession, with chart-toppers including "Love Me Tender," "Heartbreak Hotel," and "Hound Dog." Presley also created films to showcase his musical performance, helping to entrench his status, not merely as a singer, but as a persona. He remained extraordinarily popular into the 1960s, with songs such as "Can't Help Falling In Love With You" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" Though he evolved into an established figure rather than an explosive and fresh star, he remained productive and beloved. However, his own life began to crumble, due in large part to addiction. He died, likely as a result of drug use, at the age of only 42.
Presley's impact on both American music and American twentieth-century pop culture is difficult to overstate. Among his greatest legacies is his blending of musical styles from both white and black American traditions. Though far from the first white artist to borrow from, and profit from, African American music, Elvis's legacy in terms of race is a complex one. He has at times been derided for benefiting financially from black art forms at a time when black artists could not, at least not to the same extent. At the same time, he was unusually eager to credit these musicians, even explaining, "rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like coloured people." Meanwhile, beloved as he was in his lifetime, he also faced a great deal of blowback—especially from religious conservatives. Among these critics, his popularizing of African American musical styles, as well as his relatively sexually explicit performances, were judged immoral and scandalous.
Elvis Presley's larger-than-life career and legacy are a lens through which the cultural divides and evolutions of the twentieth century can be understood. The musician both embodied and created many of the most important cultural developments of his era, from the intertwining of black and white music to the creation of the modern-day celebrity to the explosion of youth culture. Duffy's poem, therefore, joins a long tradition of reinterpreting and speculating upon the legacy of Elvis Presley. This tradition of reinterpretation has included relatively straightforward lines of influence (for instance, new artists creating music influenced by Presley's) as well as stranger ones (for instance, conspiracy theories arguing that Presley remains alive today). Here, Duffy shifts these speculations into the realm of the fictional in order to dig into questions of religion, musical artistry, family relationships, and gender.
