You wanna know what happened to Elvis
I''ll tell you what happened
I oughta know man I was one of his army
I mean man I was on his side
He made us feel alright
We were the first wave in the
Postwar baby boom
The generation before had just come
Out of the Great Depression and World War II
You know heavy vibes for people to wear
So much heaviness like some kind of
Voiding of the emotions
Their music you know the songs
Life always carries
You know every culture has songs
Well anyway their music was
Restrained emotion
You know like you didn''t wanna dance
If you didn''t know how
Which says something strange
Well anyway Elvis came along
About ten years after the nuke
When the only generals America had in
The only army she had were Ike and Mac
And stupor hung over the land
A plague where everyone tried to
Materially free themselves
Still too shell-shocked to understand
To feel what was happening
Everything was getting hopeless
Then when Elvis started to rock
The roll just picked up
I mean drabness the beaver showed us
Could only be a foretold future
Who wanted to be Ward and June and
I mean father never did know best
He was still crazy from surviving the war
Like there was this psychotic pall
So widespread as to be assumed normal
Heavy man you know really
Anyway Elvis showed us an out
You know he showed every man and
Everygirl Woman there''s something good
In feeling good
Like a prophet for every boy every girl
When someone''s mom and dad lied
Something about him told us
To be sensual is really okay
Someones mom and dad waltzed us around
Everygirl wasn''t supposed to enjoy it
If she did she was bad and everybody
Well boys will be boys don''t feel anything
Take what you can
Marry a decent girl when the fun''s done
Like no matter what we did we all were guilty
Maybe someone''s mom and dad resented
What they missed and while
They were trying to pass it on us
We heard Elvis''s song and
For the first time we made up our own mind
The first wave rebelled
I mean we danced even if we didn''t know how
I mean Elvis made us move
Instead of standing mute he raised our voice
And when we hear ourselves something
Was changing you know like for the first time
We made a collective decision about choices
America hurriedly made Pat Boone
A general in the army they wanted us to join
But most of us held fast to Elvis
And the commandants around him
Chuck Berry Buddy Holly Little Richard
Bo Diddley Gene Vincent you know
Like a different civil war all over again
I mean you take don''t be cruel
I want you I need you I love you
And jailhouse rock
Or you take Pat and his white bucks
Singing love letters in the sand
Hell man what''s real here
I mean Pat at the beach in his white bucks
His ears getting sunburned told us
Something about old wave delusion
I mean wanting and needing and imprisonment
We all been to those places but what did
White bucks at the beach understand
Other than more straight line dancing
You know what I mean
Anyway man for a while we had a breather
Fresh energy to keep us from falling into the big sleep
Then before long Elvis got assassinated in all the fame
Taking a long time to die others seized
Control while Elvis rode the needle out
Never understanding what he''d done
It''s like we were the baby boom because
Life needed a fresher start
I mean two world wars in a row is
Really crazy man
And Elvis even though he didn''t know he said it
He showed it to us anyway and even though
We didn''t know we heard it we heard it anyway
Man like he woke us up
And now they''re trying to put us
Back to sleep so we''ll see how it goes
Anyway look at the record man
Rock ''n'' roll is based on revolution
Going way past 33 1/3
You gotta understand man he was
America''s baby boom Che
I oughta know man I was in his army
By John Trudell