“Elvis  Word for Word” Excerpts

About Singing Lessons:

About His Electrician Training:

About Performing Before a Live Audience:

About Expanding His Appeal:

A Lonely Soldier Boy Writes His Girl Back Home:

One Promise He Kept:

And One He Did Not:

About Army Expectations:

But Can He Dance:

Why Has He Outlasted Other Entertainers of His Generation:

About Himself:

I like the business I'm in. I like to entertain people. The money or financial end of it is not the greatest aspect as far as I'm concerned. It can't be, because if it was it would show. And I wouldn't care about the other people, I wouldn't care about a performance that I gave. Of course it's great if you can get in a position to have things, you know. But I like to entertain people. That's why I pick all my records and try to pick the best songs possible. I try to do the best I can in the movies with the experience that I've gotten and everything. I look at myself strictly as a human being who, like I said, has been very lucky, but whose life  I have blood running through my veins  can be snuffed out in just a matter of seconds and not as anything supernatural or better than any other human being.

I'm proud of the way I was brought up to believe and to treat people, and to have respect for people. When I am pushed to a certain point I have a very bad temper. An extremely bad temper, so much to the point I have no idea what I'm doing. But it doesn't happen very often.

When I was a child I was a dreamer. I read comic books and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream that I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times. I'd like to say that, uh, I learned very early in life that without a song, the day would never end. Without a song, a man ain't got a friend. Without … without a song, the road would ever bend, without a song. So I'll keep singing a song.



