Why not a Jungle Room? (Photo: Elle Maloney)

There is the so-called “Jungle Room,” with shag carpeting setting off the foliage and thickly carved furniture. Elvis’ TV room has three television sets, so he could watch each of the major networks. The racquetball court is now a two-story shrine to his dozens of gold and platinum albums.

It’s not clear that Graceland is enduring a graceful middle age into modern times. Most middle-class families in America have three TVs nowadays. And every garden-variety rocker or athlete builds a personal bowling alley, tennis court or basketball gym to suit their workout dreams.

Graceland is, at its essence, a vastly over-glorified McMansion. Yet the man’s home has been turned into a cash turnstile of excess, making public his most private sanctuaries, possessions and keepsakes. The surrounding restaurants, exhibits, and countless souvenir shops offer Elvis newsletters, and deals for hundreds of dollars off of the next visit. The gift shops sell mugs, shirts, clocks, ashtrays, snow globes, refrigerator magnets, playing cards, purses, lamps—all bearing likenesses of Elvis and his famous mansion. What must all those Chinese factory workers think as they produce this schlock?

People come to gawk in droves. Typically, they wait for an hour or more for their number to be called, and then they are herded onto vans to see the inner sanctum. They are outfitted with audio tour headphones and they smile for a souvenir photo in front of a photo mock-up of Graceland’s front gate. All the while, they are barraged by satellite attractions designed to pluck a few more dollars from the purses of the King’s most loyal worshippers.

Why the pilgrimage to blingdom? What is it about Elvis, a talented but flawed mortal, that drives millions from around the globe to happily pay a minimum of $28 per person just to look at his stuff? And pay more to see such things as Elvis’ his and hers airplanes?

At the time, state-of-the-art. (Photo: Elle Maloney)

“He was inventive,” said Jerry from Mexico. According to Jerry, Mexican Elvis fans have such reverence for the King that entertainers who cover his songs refrain from translating his lyrics into their own languages; they preserve the tunes the way their hero originally emoted them.

Anita, from Bulgaria, was in Memphis celebrating a friend’s birthday. She carved out time for a visit to Graceland.

“I’m still in love with him,” she confessed. When asked exactly what Elvis had done to achieve his legend, she echoed Jerry from Mexico: Elvis was great, he was inventive, he was the King.

For dining on peanut butter sandwiches? (Photo: Elle Maloney)

Plenty of other rock stars, from the Beatles to the Ramones to James Brown, have been inventive. But there aren’t many other dead music celebrities with a cult of followers who insist their long-dead idol is still alive and living under cover. Even a disillusioned tourist, appalled by all the commercialism, is easily moved, even speechless, while standing at Elvis’ gravesite, gazing at the eternal flame.

“I don’t know much about the American mind, you know,” confided a Frenchman. “But to me, Elvis, he’s religion. Elvis is religion here.”

Lord have mercy, one might say.

Sean McNamara is a rock guitarist from Connecticut, currently in his junior year at Loyola University in New Orleans. His major is Music Industry Studies.

Elle Maloney is a photojournalism major in her junior year at Loyola University in New Orleans. She is from Connecticut and aspires to live in both Tokyo and New York City.

Reverence with headphones on. (Photo: Shane Hennessey)