Lester Bangs was a brilliant music critic and an even better writer. He wrote passionately and wasn’t afraid of being wrong.
And today we have to say he was incorrect. With all due respect, we have to revise and amend his perfectly composed final paragraph of the send off to The King, “Where Were You When Elvis Died?” (Village Voice, August 29, 1977)
There was another musician that we all agreed on. One that held us together as Elvis did: Dolly Parton.
So long.
“If love truly is going out of fashion forever, which I do not believe, then along with our nurtured indifference to each other will be an even more contemptuous indifference to each others’ objects of reverence. I thought it was Iggy Stooge, you thought it was Joni Mitchell or whoever else seemed to speak for your own private, entirely circumscribed situation’s many pains and few ecstasies. We will continue to fragment in this manner, because solipsism holds all the cards at present; it is a king whose domain engulf even Elvis’s. But I can guarantee you one thing: we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis. So I won’t bother saying good-bye to his corpse. I will say good-bye to you.”