Poetry & Blindfolds

Considering their royal titles, not many people have written about the parallels between the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, and the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.  Yet the parallels and coincidences abound like a musical version of the fabled Kennedy/Lincoln parallels.

 

*Michael’s first Top 10 hit, “I Want You Back”, was in 1969, the same year as Elvis’ last Top 10 hit, “In the Ghetto.”

 

*Both died eight years after their last Top 10 hit.

 

* Elvis was accused of stealing the black man’s music; Michael was credited with stealing it back.

 

*Both decided to name their property with words that ended with “land”, as if to suggest they were their own sovereign nation. 

 

*Both had Lisa Marie Presley.

 

*Both went from being iconic geniuses and inspirational artists to cartoon versions of themselves.

 

*Both died white.

 

 

* * * * * * *

 

Diana Ross, not mentioned in this blog.

Michael Jackson became THE star when I was in high school.  Although I never owned any of his records (except for ‘The Girl is Mine’, which had my fave rave, Paul McCartney, on it), he got me through the misery of high school better than a good friend.  In my joke above, I suggest that Michael stole the black man’s music back; that’s not exactly true.   In my opinion, Elvis did his interpretation of black music and Michael did his interpretation of white music doing its interpretation of black music.  Although not nearly as funny to say, it explains how Jackson, more than any artist since Elvis, transcended and obliterated the whole ‘us and them’ feeling really for the first time since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.  I daresay that Jackson opened such a pivotal door that he can and should be credited in part to the US having its first black president.

 

His music was exciting, brilliant, new, familiar, theatrical, sexy, tough… you name it.  I hear the same energy in Elvis’ Sun Studios recordings.  And it with that same cynical sadness that I observed the arc of Elvis that I must observe the arc of Michael.  Genius.  Innovator.  Passionate explorer.  Surrounded by people who give into his whims and fill him with some sort of show-biz fermaldihide to keep him in place, on the throne, a living memory that can do no harm.  The man inside vanishes, leaving a caricature that bows to the man’s past glories as well as any sycophant.  A caricature that should be a protagonist on a David Bowie album (rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust, specifically) and not a real person.  A caricature that suffocates under the weight of his past glories and his present admirers.  A shadow after sunset.

 

And then there’s the Generation X’ers.  My people.  Notoriously self-important and proud of it, teaching the Generation Y’ers how to lift vapidity to high art.  “Farrah and Michael in one day,” they bemoan, “why is this happening to me?”  One can almost sense the joy and lust in these postings - finally, a pretty tragedy that doesn’t impact me to go along with two wars that don’t bother me. 

 

In a world filled with endings, it is difficult to come to a conclusion here.  I must say I am grateful for the music of Michael Jackson and the good memories it houses, evokes and inspires.  Just as strongly, I mourn the lonely king who could not break out of the castle.  Perhaps it is simply fitting to say, he was a man, take him for all in all; I shall not look upon his like again.

 

Or, as my friend Emily said, ‘someone you never met just died.’