By the time The Beatles made significant moves in the early 1960s, Elvis Presley had already completed his most impactful chapter. Throughout the previous decade, the so-called King of rock ‘n’ roll combed together over a century of musical evolution from the realms of country, blues, jazz, folk and gospel into one seamless product. With recording and distribution technology in an unstoppable climb, rock music entered a perfect storm of commercialisation.
In December 1957, the US government drafted Presley into the Army. “The Army can do anything it wants with me,” he famously stated at the time, declaring that he didn’t want any special treatment. After one deferment, allowing him to complete his movie, King Creole, Presley was sworn in as an army private in Memphis in March 1958.
Presley served as an armour intelligence specialist in Germany for approximately two years before being honourably discharged. With this, he could return to his career. Throughout the 1960s, Presley devoted much of his time to acting, pursuing a lukewarm career in Hollywood while maintaining a musical presence with several global hit singles.
Despite Presley’s maintained allure throughout the 1960s, the times had moved on, with the baton now firmly in the hands of the Brits. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who led the charge in the British invasion; meanwhile, The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel headed up a popular wave in Presley’s home country.
Presley served as an armour intelligence specialist in Germany for approximately two years before being honourably discharged. With this, he could return to his career. Throughout the 1960s, Presley devoted much of his time to acting, pursuing a lukewarm career in Hollywood while maintaining a musical presence with several global hit singles.
Despite Presley’s maintained allure throughout the 1960s, the times had moved on, with the baton now firmly in the hands of the Brits. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who led the charge in the British invasion; meanwhile, The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel headed up a popular wave in Presley’s home country.
To say Presley’s influence had diminished by the mid-1960s would be unfair. However, the King’s popularity was diluted by a cascade of dominoes he had set in motion a decade earlier. Very few of these young, emerging artists in the ’60s would discount Presley as a central luminary, with John Lennon famously stating, “Before Elvis, there was nothing”.
Like the rest of the world, Presley became fond of The Beatles early on and invited the Fab Four to his home in Bel Air, California, in August 1965. The Beatles had already cracked America with a string of number-one hits, but this occasion symbolised the passing of the baton in a clash of the century’s salient pop cultural titans.
Unlike Presley, The Beatles wrote their own songs. By the time they met their hero, they had abandoned the covers that lingered in early albums altogether and began to lead rock music into its next chapter. Inspired by Bob Dylan and Beat Generation literature, John Lennon and Paul McCartney explored increasingly abstract lyrical concepts and formations, challenging their listeners to join them in the imminent psychedelic era.
Presley’s close friend and former road manager Joe Esposito once revealed that “Elvis loved the Beatles’ music”. However, he noted that the star wasn’t so enthusiastic about the psychedelic oddities usually attributed to Lennon’s side of the songwriting partnership. “He just didn’t — ‘Yellow Submarine’ that period of time. He didn’t care for those songs,” Esposito added.
Throughout the final decade of his career, Presley covered several Beatles songs both in the studio and on stage. “Elvis believed in songs with a lot of good words and meaning with something behind them like ‘Michelle’ and ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Hey Jude’ and those songs,” Esposito noted, intriguingly listing three McCartney compositions.
Elvis was several years older than The Beatles and maintained a somewhat traditional outlook when it came to scruffily-garbed hippies and the use of LSD. “He didn’t care for that period of time,” Esposito revealed. “That was a drug time, which was ironic. So, those songs he didn’t care about.”
While Presley respected the Beatles and adored much of their vast catalogue, he allegedly warned President Nixon that the band promoted anti-Americanism. According to Presley’s FBI file, he felt that the Beatles “laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are having with young people by their filthy unkempt appearances and suggestive music.” As an Army veteran and supporter of the Vietnam War, Presley was also critical of Lennon’s anti-war stance.