A lot of people have had awkward meetings with Elvis Presley after admiring him and looking up to him for years. One of those people is John Lennon of the Beatles. The entire group of the Beatles admired Elvis and would one day be able to sort out some sort of meeting for all of them. The entire group went to meet the King of Rock and Roll and reports claim that it was pretty awkward.
In an old interview, Priscilla Presley talks about the ‘awkward’ meeting and how the day actually went. She would greet the band at the front door of Graceland that evening and show them around before taking them to Elvis. The man himself was relaxing in the den area.
What happens with Elvis and John Lennon meet…
“They were so cute,” Priscilla says. “They were so excited but so nervous. You could hear a pin drop when they walked in. All they cared about was seeing Elvis.” Priscilla adds that the group of boys was holding back their excitement because they wanted to be respectful. Priscilla makes a special mention of John Lennon, who had like this child-like starstruck innocence about him when meeting his idol.
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“John was shy, timid, looking at him… I really believe that he just couldn’t believe that he was actually there with Elvis Presley,” Priscilla says. “It was a little bit awkward because they just kept looking at him and not really saying anything and not really sitting down, just staring at him.”
Lennon freezes and becomes speechless
Priscilla remembers that it felt like a really long time of just staring in awkward silence between all of them. That’s when Elvis decides to break the ice, saying, “Elvis just said, ‘You know, guys, if you’re just gonna stand around and stare at me, I might as well just do my own thing.” He grabs a bass guitar and begins to play, which evidently lightens the mood amongst all the musicians.
In an interview several years later, Lennon does admit that he was “nervous as hell” meeting Elvis. “We were terrified. He is our idol. We went in and he was sitting in front of a TV. He had this TV, I remember; he had an amplifier and a bass plugged into. And watching with no sound on the TV. And playing bass and singing, and we were sort of singing along. But we were really just watching him.”
Lennon continues in the interview, “It’s a strange story… I just remember sitting there and him playing the bass. And me thinking, ‘It’s Elvis! It’s actually Elvis.’” I guess idolizing someone for so long can definitely make you this way! Check out the interview with Priscilla Presley below, and watch for when she talks about Elvis and John Lennon.
Iamjustanamerican says
In the spring of 1963, when I was 6 years old, my father decided to stop by Graceland to get a photo of my older brother and I in front of the gates. The gate guard, who was Elvis’s uncle, saw us and came out of the gate house to chat. He offered to take a photo of the three of us and opened the gate and did so. It was drizzling a bit so he invited us over to the gatehouse porch to get out of the weather while he and my father chatted. Noticing me and my brother looking at the house and the pink Cadillac parked in front he said we could go up and check it out but cautioned us to stay in the front as Elvis and his posse of friends were in the back. My father gave my brother his camera to take photos. We proceeded up the driveway to the house. I walked over to the Cadillac. Is was looking very neglected. The tires were lacking air the paint was oxidized and a heavy layer of rotting maple leaves covered the hood, convertible top and trunk lid. This was his mother’s car he had purchased for her and she had passed away the previous year. I turned and walked past the stone statues of lions and approached the front door. Standing in front of the door I noticed it had a peep hole the size of a silver dollar. My brother standing off to the right encouraged me to knock on the door while he took photos. Suddenly, within the house I heard the ringing of a phone. This continued briefly then stopped. Then I could hear footsteps and the sound of someone talking front the other side of the door. I told my brother some one was on the other side talking but I couldn’t hear them clearly. Then my brother informed me our father was motioning us to come back to the gate house. We walked back down toward it, hoping we were not in trouble. Reaching the gate house, Elvis’s uncle informed us that the person whose voice I had heard was Elvis. He had been on the way upstairs when the phone rang and used the long extension cord to walk over to the door and view me through the peep hole. He had asked what my name was and my father provided it and he was saying hello to me through the door but I couldn’t hear him! He had even wanted to open the door to greet me and invite us in for one of his famous peanut butter, banana sandwiches but his uncle told him he shouldn’t, because he may, “scare the young fella'” , and my mother and sister’s were asleep in our station wagon parked across the street and we still had a long drive home. For some inexplicable reason only my brother and I remember this incident, my father doesn’t, and we have never been able to locate those photo’s of us at the gate or me standing in front of the front door with Elvis on the other side. But it happened.