Nothing highlighted the growing generation gap more than rock ’n’ roll. When Elvis Presley burst onto the music scene in the mid-1950s, adults criticized his music and gyrating hips, while teenage boys dressed to imitate his style, and teenage girls screamed and fainted at his concerts. In 1957 Charlotte Jones, an admiring fan, wrote the following letter to the conservative newspaper columnist George Sokolsky in response to Sokolsky’s criticism of Presley’s popularity.
There are too many people saying that Elvis is going to die out. When Elvis dies out is when the sun quits burning.
You say everybody is forgotten that is once great; George Washington has never been forgotten and nobody can be as great a president or as long remembered as he. Nobody can ever take his place or do what he did. Well, it’s the same with Elvis. He’ll always be remembered and nobody has ever [done] or ever will do the same thing as Elvis has.
Elvis is the king of popularity and we (teens of America) love him and we’ll see he lives forever. Not his body but his name. Adults won’t admit he’s so great, because they’re jealous! They know that their top singers weren’t as great as Elvis. They’re mad because their taste isn’t quite as good as ours.
Look at James Dean, been dead for a year and he’s bigger now than he ever was.
God gifted Elvis to us and you oughta thank him, not tear down the greatest thing the world has ever known: Elvis Presley!!!!!!
Scornfully yours,
Charlotte Jones
P.S.: And if you’re over 30, you’re old. You’re certainly not young.
Source: George E. Sokolsky, “Teenager Puts Rap on Suggestion Elvis on Way Out,” Milwaukee Sentinel, March 11, 1957, 5.