Want to see what true power looks like? [Elvis Presley] [Performers Worth the Watch]

Before devolving into a joke or a punchline, Elvis Presley was probably the single greatest performer of the 20th Century. While Freddie Mercury's capacity to capture a crowd remains as captivating to present viewers as Mercury's lyrical and emotional prowess, Presley had the patience and self-control to make his display seem utterly nonchalant.

This is a man who feels deeply, but never loses control of the energy passing through him. Look at him sweat, this isn't a fricking beauty pageant it's a performance and he is a heavy hitter.

What I love about Elvis is you get this sense of him that he knew his job was to fricking hit it out of the park with all eyes on him, and all he had to do was stay calm and shine.

:marseyelvis:

There are a few key technical moments to point out.

The rhetorical function of this piece is that of the unifying politics. Savvy viewers of this nationally televised event (in a nationalistic society, all performance is nationalized) would have understood the undertones.

So we have a few verses of Dixieland segueing immediately across the discursive boundary to the Battle Hymn which should be top of mind, anyhow, are you doing your part? I am, this is nationalistic propaganda, if you weren't savvy to that lmao read more books on media and propaganda.

The thing I want to point you is the smoothness of the eidetic gesture for the three stings after "Glory Glory Hallelujah," specifically 1m34-1m36. Your generic frontman will puncture those stings but Elvis has this oneness with them that does not prescribe nor describe. This is a master sync with the organism of the gestalt of the piece: one mind many bodies. Both energy transfer and energy synthesis, which is a massive multiplier. The payoff for this, in my view, comes with the invocation of the trumpets at 1:47ish.

There's the interlude which is a clear moment of silence for the dead of the Civil War. A touching flute solo for the fallen South, then: the big buildup.

The specific thing I want to point you to is that Elvis Presley's mastery of background and foreground is superb. During this buildup Presley employs a sublime stillness, the wellspring of masculinity itself. (And if you have wondered at my deepest gender, it lies in sharing this stillness.)

But Presley isn't repressing here. He is soaking. The tension has begun to break, and the same trumpets which Presley invoked earlier now cry out, and Presley becomes filled with the power of the moment. And in that moment of genuine performance, in the wilding of the mass gyroscopic of the raw force of human energy, you see the man simply reflecting on the reality rushing by.

And it fills him up and he feels good, and then this energy is all rushing into him because... it's time to sing the chorus. And he turns, and taps in and sings.

He does his job, the organism performing has turned the knob up to 11. Presley is unfazed, but yet moved: this is the job. To channel this much energy in a moment without breaking.

So yeah this is my way of asking if we can get a :marseyelvis: in here. There is a manliness beyond chad and incel, beyond alpha, beta, or sigma. Elvis had it.

It's why so many people loved him. He saw that whatever was happening was just rushing by, it made as much sense to anyone as it did to him, but so long as it's there, you take it and you run.