He’ll Always Be Elvis永远的猫王
2022-08-31科斯佳肯尼迪黄媛
文/科斯佳·肯尼迪 译/黄媛
By Kostya Kennedy
There’s plenty of kitschto indulge in on a visit to Graceland, the estateturned-tourist-meccawhere Elvislived for the last 20 years of his abbreviated life. You might stay in a nearby motel with a guitar-shaped swimming pool and in-room televisions that show Elvis movies 24 hours a day. You might find yourself in a diner ordering deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.You might pony upfor a stained-glassElvis Christmas tree ornament.
猫王埃尔维斯在雅园度过了他短暂一生的最后20年，这座庄园因而成为旅游圣地。到这里参观的时候，有不少猫王周边纪念品和设施让人流连忘返：你也许会在附近一家有着吉他形状泳池的旅馆下榻，客房里的电视机全天24小时播放着猫王主演的电影。你可能会在一家小餐厅里点上一份油煎三明治，里面夹有抹上了花生酱的香蕉。你还有可能会破费一下，买个彩色玻璃材质的猫王圣诞树装饰品。
2 但是，主题餐饮和纪念品并不足以每年吸引60万名游客造访雅园，尤其是在猫王已经离世45年后的今天。45年前，也就是1977年酷热的夏天，8月16日晚，全美50个州、然后是世界各地的新闻主播和头条记者都报道了这则消息：猫王埃尔维斯·普雷斯利逝世，享年42岁。
2 But theme meals and tchotchkeswould not be enough to lure the 600,000 visitors who come to Graceland each year, even now, 45 years later. Fortyfive years, that is, since the hot-awful summer of 1977 when, on the evening of August 16, newscasters and headline writers in 50 U.S. states and then in provinces around the world began to spread the news: Elvis Presley, dead at 42.
3 The flags in Memphis flew at halfstaff the next day and thousands of fans traveled to Elvis’s home, to Graceland,to view him in his casket. When his hearse drove through Memphis for the funeral the day after that, many more thousands—half a million, some guessed—stood on the streets.
4 Graceland is a 17,552-foot, 23-room mansion on 14 acres in South Memphis,off what is now known as Elvis Presley Boulevard. It’s about a hundred miles from the two-room shotgun shackin Tupelo, Mississippi where Elvis was born, seven miles from the public housingapartment where he lived as a teenager and barely a 10-minute drive from Sun Records studio where, in 1954 at the age of 19, Elvis made his first commercial record.
Small world.
3 第二天，整个孟菲斯市降半旗致哀，成千上万的歌迷涌入猫王的家——雅园，来瞻仰他的灵柩。第三天，送葬的灵车驶过孟菲斯市，更多的民众——据说约有50万人——伫立街边送行。
4 雅园地处孟菲斯市南部，位于现在被称为猫王大道的地方，庄园占地14英亩，宅邸占地17552平方英尺，共23间房。雅园离猫王出生地——密西西比州图珀洛市一套仅有两个房间的小屋——大约100英里，距他少年时居住的公共住房只有7英里，到太阳唱片公司的录音棚仅10分钟的车程。1954年，19岁的猫王在这间录音棚灌制了他的第一张商业唱片。
猫王的世界真小。
5参观猫王的世界，你感受到的是猫王作为一个人的存在，而不仅仅是他的成就或他代表的各种文化符号。雅园如此成功，用自己的方式感动你我，原因正在于此。结束参观的时候，你会觉得，不知怎么你已经读懂了猫王。埃尔维斯盛名之下粉丝遍布全球，这在充斥着推特的当今世界几乎也让人觉得不可思议，尽管看似高高在上，但埃尔维斯始终保持本色，是个真性情的人。他的打扮花里胡哨，品位标新立异，但他的骨子里却只是埃尔维斯，一个来自密西西比州小镇却成就了惊世伟业的男孩。
5 What you get out of a trip to that world—and why Graceland is so hugely successful, and touching in its way—is an impression of the man, not just the phenomenonor the caricature.You leave with the certain feeling that you’ve gotten to understand him somehow. Even despite an enormityof fame and global idolatryalmost incomprehensible in a modern, Twitterriddledworld, Elvis remained unceasingly authentic. Garishand showy and heavy handedin his taste, he was, to the bone, Elvis himselvis, the kid from small-town Mississippi made inordinatelygood.
6 猫王在太阳唱片公司灌制的第一张唱片是一首名为《没事了（妈妈）》的蓝调老歌欢快的翻唱版，这首歌与他的人生轨迹相当契合，因为猫王第一次到太阳唱片公司的录音棚，就是为了给母亲格拉迪丝录一首歌。在母亲离世前，他一直和母亲生活在一起。格拉迪丝与儿子猫王、丈夫弗农以及弗农的母亲明妮·梅一起葬在雅园一处名为冥想园的地方。在这里，刺脊乐队的吉他手奈杰尔·塔夫内尔，静静地打量着猫王的墓碑，感慨道：“现在体会到猫王真是不简单，不是吗？”对此，乐队的主唱戴维·圣哈宾斯回应道：“可不是么，现在这这那那的体会可太多了。”
6 That first record at Sun was Elvis’s high-spirited version of an old blues song called(),which fits his story-line neatly given that Elvis had first come to Sun Studio to record a song for his own mama,Gladys, whom he lived with until the day she died. Gladys is now buried,alongside Elvis and Elvis’s father, Vernon, and Vernon’s mother, Minnie Mae,in a place called the Meditation Garden at Graceland. This is where Spinal Tapguitarist Nigel Tufnel, quietly surveying Elvis’s grave, observes: “It really puts perspectiveon things, though, doesn’t it?” To which Tap frontmanDavid St.Hubbins responds: “Too much, there’s too much perspective now.”
7 戏说归戏说，读懂猫王的感觉并非看到他墓碑时的睹物思人，而是走近这座宅邸各个房间时的触景生情。这里有绿色的粗毛地毯和人工瀑布、从当地家具店展示区买下的提基风格的成套家具，墙上有闪电图案的装饰，桌子上摆放着白色的瓷猴。此外，还有不少电视机，起码有十几台，其中有三台并排摆放。收集这么多台电视机似乎是因为这在美国是财富和成功的典型象征——就像在特夫亚当时生活的俄国，拥有大量的火鸡和鹅就意味着富足一样。猫王对这些显而易见的东西有着毫不掩饰的渴望。
7 Sendupsaside, the sensation of getting to know Elvis comes not from reflecting at the burial site but rather from the rooms throughout the house.There’s the green shag carpetingand the fauxwaterfall, the tiki-like furniture bought as an ensembleout of a local furniture shop’s showroom display,the lightning bolton the wall and the white porcelain monkey on the table.Also, there are the many televisions, a dozen or more, including three side by side. The TVs seem as if they were collected as a quintessentially American show of wealth and success—in the way that having an abundance of turkeys and geese signaled wealth in Tevye’sRussia. Elvis had an unapologetic appetite for the obvious.
8 On such a TV screen you might see Elvis, in the mid 1950s, in all his marvelous, hip-swivelingvirility, belting outoror another in the sudden outpouring of hit songs that reframed popular music then and forever. And on another TV screen you might see him in the 1970s,bloatedby all he had consumed, in that studdedwhite jumpsuit, singing, perhaps, or Simon ＆Garfunkel’s, sweat descending in rivuletsdown his changed familiar face, eyes closed,and still with that voice, deep and melancholy and free of constraint. Elvis at the start and Elvis to the end: Beautiful,brilliant, and true. ■
8 在其中的一块电视屏幕上，你可能会看到20世纪50年代中期的猫王，跳着他那活力非凡的扭胯舞步，高唱着《心碎旅馆》或《别太残忍》等劲歌金曲，这些歌曲突然涌现，重新定义了当时和后来的流行音乐。在另一块电视屏幕上，你可能会看到20世纪70年代的猫王，此时的他，因胡吃海塞已变得臃肿不堪，穿着那件镶嵌宝石的白色连体衣，也许在唱《猜疑的心》，也许在唱西蒙和加尔丰克尔的那首《忧郁河上桥》，汗水顺着他那张既熟悉又陌生的脸庞淌下来，他双眸紧闭，仍是原来的嗓音，深沉忧郁、无拘无束。出色、辉煌、真实——这，就是猫王的一生。 □
