Laying the foundations: The artist Bono called “the blueprint for rock and roll”
In the grand tradition of rock and roll singers, Bono is the one person who might take his job a bit too seriously. He may believe in the power of rock being able to move you in a way that few other earthly things can, but there are only so many times you can hear one of his speeches before you want to throw your head through a window.
For all of the political posturing Bono likes to do onstage, and he likes to do a lot of it, he knows that rock is about fun, and no one else compared to what he saw Elvis Presley do.
Given his pedigree in rock and roll, Presley may as well be the moment of The Big Bang when it comes to rock and roll. Though there had been amazing rock stars before him, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, that helped expose white audiences to the power of rock, Presley was the one to take it to living rooms worldwide, shaking his hips in a way that most found provocative.
Beyond just rock music, Presley may be one of the most important figures in modern pop culture. Years before the likes of The Beatles, Presley’s persona and amazing performance ability made him one of the first musicians who truly seemed larger than life when he hit the stage.
Although Bono grew up in an age when punk rock was dominating the cultural conversation, he still found Presley wildly captivating, telling Rolling Stone, “Elvis changed everything…In Elvis, you have the blueprint for rock and roll. The highness—the gospel highs. The mud—the Delta mud, the blues. Sexual liberation. Controversy. Changing the way people feel about the world. It’s all there with Elvis.”
While Bono has been known for taking himself far more seriously than Elvis whenever he performs, the similarities aren’t hard to parse out. The minute Bono steps to the microphone, there’s a certain choreography that he manages to fall into, as if he’s trying to split the world in half through every word he sings.
It wasn’t much different when Presley played for the first time. Most fans may not have known exactly what they were seeing, but hearing Presley sing down-and-dirty rock and roll and pelvic thrust in between different syllables was far more liberating than just hearing him sing the song.
Bono also singled out Presley’s comeback performance as one of his highlights, recalling, “Pretty much everything I want from guitar, bass and drums was present: a performer annoyed by the distance from his audience; a persona that made a prism of fame’s wide-angle lens; a sexuality matched only by a thirst for God’s instruction”.
Most importantly, Presley was the first person to help people see the real merit behind rock and roll. Sure, it wasn’t all that pleasant for the grandparents of the world, but every time one of those songs came on, life suddenly felt a lot more exciting and important than it was before.
That hasn’t stopped, either, with every new band or solo artist taking that mantle for a new generation. Metallica holds that distinction for metal, The Beatles have held it for pop rock, and Taylor Swift might hold it for pop nowadays, but without Presley’s electric presence, none of them would have been able to scale those heights.
