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Speakers Corner Not 'til I discovered Elvis Presley did my love for music begin.
“Not since Barry McGuigan did my room get such a wallpapering in pictures of one man’s face”
Speakers Corner Denise Horan
MY love affair with Elvis began quite by accident. Presented with a blank cassette and ordered by my brother to record the ‘Elvis Hour’ on Century FM one Saturday (while he went off to his part-time job), I dutifully obliged. Fifteen minutes into the show, I was hooked. Three weeks later my brother had discovered Reggae and Elvis and his dedicated music hour were all mine. It was my first time being gripped by a single voice. That the voice had actually sung its last note 15 years earlier was no deterrent. Contemporary music had never stirred me, and going to discos to listen to a chorus of shouting and squealing from Axl Rose et al was nothing more than a chore. But, being a teenager and wanting to blend – to some degree – with my contemporaries, it was a chore that had to be attended to. Then Elvis came into my world…and my love of music began. The energy, versatility and uniqueness of his voice captivated me. When Elvis played, everything else stopped and a child that had been indifferent turned into an adolescent that was passionate. Cassettes were bought as limited finances and rare trips to Castlebar or Galway permitted. Umpteen books were bought and borrowed, read and re-read. Awful Elvis-emblazoned t-shirts were worn as if they were Prada dresses. Elvis movies – which even my fanatic heart never really managed to like – were recorded whenever they were shown. My prized possession as a teenager was a box set of all of Elvis’s songs from the 1950s, presented to me as a gift by my cousin and her husband, as a thank you for being bridesmaid at their wedding. I doubt if they ever realised the joy they brought. Elvis became my hero, and not since Barry McGuigan (my first hero) was at the height of his powers did my room get such a wallpapering in pictures of one man’s face. Friends and family thought it a little odd that someone so young was so mad about someone so, well, dead. But they stopped short of sniggering (I think). There was a certain nobility about being an Elvis fan, it seemed. Not everyone saw the fascination, but none doubted his legend. Only once did I question the wisdom of my obsession with a singer who had died, following a spectacular downward spiral in his life, a year before I was born. It was while listening to an Elvis fan on radio one day, a middle-aged American woman with a Southern drawl, who was eulogising ‘The King’. In spite of her woeful accent, the eulogy was fair enough. Until she revealed how Elvis had got her through some of the hardest times in her life – crises like losing a job, being abandoned by her husband, suffering bereavements, running over the cat. I turned it off before Elvis was credited with bringing down the Iron Curtain, and wondered if us Elvis fans could ever walk with our heads held high again. I was quickly consoled on remembering that no one else but Elvis fans were likely to be listening to the interview. Anyway, the poor dear had probably, I decided, confused Elvis with Jesus. Anyone could be forgiven for being mixed up if they’d had that many bad breaks in life. The Elvis phase stayed with me through college, during which my first ever public singing appearance took place, under great duress. The venue was Ted Lavelle’s pub in Achill (during an outdoor pursuits trip), the song was ‘All Shook Up’, the sound – I’m pretty sure – was awful. But nobody left, so it could, in hindsight, be considered a success of sorts. Eventually, in early adulthood, I discovered there were other singers out there. Some were even still alive. And so, as my tastes broadened, the listening time devoted to Elvis lessened. Now I usually only listen to him when he’s played unexpectedly on radio, which is always a treat. I’m no longer a fanatic, but I’ll always be a fan. Once Elvis enters your world, he never leaves. Just ask all the grown men and women who wept on August 16, 1977.
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This one-woman show stars Brídín Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh, an actress, writer and presenter who has several screen credits including her role as Katy Daly on Ros na Rún, and the award-winning TV drama Crá
Breaffy Rounders will play Glynn Barntown (Wexford) in the Senior Ladies Final and Erne Eagles (Cavan) in the Senior Men's All-Ireland Final in the GAA National Games Development Centre, Abbotstown
Breaffy Rounders will play Glynn Barntown (Wexford) in the Senior Ladies Final and Erne Eagles (Cavan) in the Senior Men's All-Ireland Final in the GAA National Games Development Centre, Abbotstown
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