I was 17 when I wrote this article back in 1992 for The Elvis Beat #3, my official Elvis Presley Fan Club newsletter.
“There have been a lot of tough guys. There have been pretenders, there have been contenders. But there is only one King. Everything starts and ends with him. He wrote the book,” rock legend Bruce Springsteen once said of Elvis.
If one were to trace Jersey-born Springsteen’s musical influences back, Elvis really would be at the start. According to Springsteen, it was after seeing Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 that he decided to become a singer. Although he was only seven at the time, he began to work toward that goal.
Springsteen struggled for years to make it in the music industry. In 1975, his Born To Run album finally brought him national attention. In a rare occurrence, he appeared on the covers of both Newsweek and Time during the same week.
It was during his “Born To Run” tour the following year that he tried to meet Elvis. Springsteen told the story at a 1985 concert in Hampton Roads, Virginia:
“We were in Memphis, and it was about 3:00 in the morning, and I got in this taxi cab – me and Steve Van Zandt. This taxi driver was going to take us some place to eat, but then he took us to Elvis’ house.
“And I remember when I was standing out in front and I saw a light in the window. And I jumped over the wall and ran up in the driveway and tried to get to the door.
“Which, when I look back on it, was a stupid thing to do, because I hate it when people do that to my house [laughs], but I did it anyway.
“And I got to the front door, and these guards came out of the woods, and they asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted to meet Elvis. And they said, ‘Well, you know, he’s in Lake Tahoe.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but like I was like on the cover of like Time and Newsweek.’ And they said, ‘Oh yeah, sure you were. Alright, just come with us.’ And they took me and they put me back out on the street.”
On May 28, 1977, at the Philadelphia Spectrum, he saw Elvis live in concert […]. It was only two and a half months later that Elvis passed away. At the Hampton concert, Springsteen described his reaction to the news:
“There’s always events you kind of mark your lives by . . . And I always remember where I was, I was living on this farm, when a friend of mine called me and told me that Elvis Presley had died. I guess it was hard to understand how somebody who came in and took away so many people’s loneliness could have ended up so lonely . . . because he deserved a lot better.”
Elvis’ death was Springsteen’s inspiration for his song “Johnny Bye Bye,” which ends, “You didn’t have to die, you didn’t have to die.”
Springsteen has recorded or performed several Elvis songs, including “Follow That Dream.” In 1989, he recorded “Viva Las Vegas” for a United Kingdom charity album. It was during the same session that several of the songs appearing on Human Touch, one of his two latest albums, were recorded. Although his version of “Viva Las Vegas” was used in the film Honeymoon In Vegas earlier this year, it was unfortunately not included on the soundtrack album.
Recently, in Worcester, Massachusetts, during his August 14 concert at the Centrum, Springsteen said, “For Elvis, fifteen years gone,” before launching into “Follow That Dream,” his favorite Elvis song.
Springsteen said, “(Elvis) came in and kind of told everybody that you’re not alone out there. I guess that was his . . . that was one of his messages. To me, he was as big as the whole country itself, as big as the whole dream. Nothing will ever take the place of that guy.”
The Mystery Train 