Goodbye, Elvis Presley
Farewell, Marilyn Monroe
Just a note before my letter to say that though I cancelled nearly all of my planned spring tour in the USA due to personal circumstances, I was able to keep one date – NashYarnFest in Nashville on Saturday, April 18, AND my concert will be live-streamed as part of the event! So, you can buy a ticket to watch my show from anywhere around the world. Your ticket will also mean that you hear the four other speakers that day AND you’ll get to join Samantha Brunson as she talks to fiber artists and yarn-makers. If the time difference doesn’t work for you, the recording will be available for a week after the festival. There is no ticket for my concert alone, but your purchase of a $35 livestream ticket means that the speakers, including me, are paid fairly for our time and travel! Details HERE.
Once upon a time, I lived in Paris. Was this because of my deep interest in French literature or because I was a fluent French speaker (no, I am not)? Was it because I was keen to become a fashionista or perhaps because I wanted to study the making of baguettes?
No, my friends, it’s all because of Elvis. And Marilyn Monroe. While I was a student at Davidson College (go Wildcats!!), I met Gail Gibson, medieval scholar and all around goddess, who became my academic mentor. Gail was an Elvis nut. I was a Marilyn Monroe nut. We never looked back.
Gail gave a seminar called “Women, Mysticism, and Authority” where we read Simone Weil, Julian of Norwich, and Shaker writings, among others. For some time, I’d been interested in fandom as a form of religious experience – collecting memorabilia, attending concerts and conventions, visiting gravesites, and dressing up as celebrities. Gail’s seminar seemed to bring everything together for me and set me on the path to Paris.
During my senior year at Davidson, I applied for a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and won a grant thanks to the wonderful mentoring of Gail. The Watson Fellowship is a stipend (established by Watson of IBM) which allows graduates to study something off the wall and particularly fascinating to them. As part of the interview process, I dressed as a tired administrative assistant who secretly loved Marilyn Monroe and wore Marilyn type dresses under her tweedy office clothes. It was a performance piece. I did four performance pieces for courses at Davidson! I loved them – one woman shows about laundry, celebrity, and telling the truth.
I called my Watson project “Stars and Saints, Fans and the Faithful: Religious and Popular Devotionalism in Europe and Japan.” I based myself in Boulogne-Billancourt in the southwest of Paris and memorized the Monoprix jingle as I shopped for beans and couscous. I went to Japan and saw a purple minivan airbrushed with the face of Audrey Hepburn in Nagano. I went to Lourdes and saw a selection of Virgin Mary water bottles poised regally on a Marilyn Monroe beach towel in a shop window.
Everywhere, signs spoke to me about the ways that we travel through life holding onto dear things and dear loves to find our way in the dark. I came to believe that we are seekers of one kind or another. I am, anyway. I’m always looking, listening, sifting, combining, and re-making what I’ve found along the way, telling the story of what I hope I saw. Telling a story of hope, wishing and praying for sparkles and stars.
I don’t have any photos from those times in Paris. Well, I might, but they’re in my attic in Nashville. What I do have is this song.
At the time I wrote this song, I’d just finished my masters in English literature and I’d become very interested in songwriting after going to several folk festivals with my dad and while I was studying at Bread Loaf up in Vermont. Bread Loaf even let me use the old print shop in a little wooden shack on the edge of campus for my rehearsal and songwriting space.
I’d grown up playing trombone and singing in choirs and in musicals. It’s not really workable to sing and play trombone at the same time, so in 2002 I decided I needed to learn to play guitar. But never content to do things by halves, I also decided to learn banjo, ukulele, mandolin, autoharp, and harmonica.
I’d play my new songs for my dad and he’d listen with bemusement at my slant rhymes and then join in on guitar, banjo, harmonica, or anything handy.
“Goodbye, Elvis Presley” is one of the first songs I ever wrote. It’s a “ta-doo-run-run-run, ta-doo-run-run” kind of song. Whenever we were all in the car together, my family could usually agree on the oldies station which means I now have a lot of The Crystals and the Shangri-Las in my brain.
One day in 2004, Dad was visiting me in Washington DC and we went over to visit my friends Molly and Tony who were both musical. Tony had some old recording gear in the house, so he set it up and we were rolling. Dad and I played the instruments. I’d actually made up a cute little mandolin solo for this song! Molly sang unison and harmony with me. That’s it, just the one take with the hilariously disjointed re-entry of instruments at the end of the song.
I’m so very glad that I have this recording of my early songwriting days and my dad and friends joining in with me. Old friends who I haven’t seen in twenty years and my dad who has been gone for ten years now on tape. Wow, says my heart. Let’s hear that again! Sing it again!
Back in 2019 when I released my Homecoming Queen CD, a fan asked me if I could create an ultimate superfan package for him because he and his daugher loved my music so much! Wow. Thank you! One of the things that I made for them was a five song EP called Pretty Girls in a Line. “Goodbye, Elvis Presley” was track five. My fan and his daughter were happy with their superfan package. I appreciated the support for my music and I finally got to use the linocuts of Elvis and Marilyn I’d made back in 2004 when I wrote this song. Marilyn made the cover of the CD envelope and Elvis adorned the lyric sheet.
I hope you enjoy this song! It seemed right for Valentine’s Day weekend to share my Elvis and Marilyn love with you.
Your friend,
Jeni
Goodbye, Elvis Presley
© Jeni Hankins, 2004.
Oh, Goodbye Elvis Presley.
Farewell, Marilyn Monroe.
And all those lights who so impressed me
though you went dark years ago.
Oh, Goodbye Marilyn Monroe.
I’ll tell you the story of Elvis Presley.
God Almighty, Heaven Bless me!
The way he danced ‘cross the TV screen
like a rollercoaster, he made me scream.
I’ll tell you the story of a hard luck kid
who made it bigger than his daddy did.
We loved the shakin’ of his hips
and the sound that came from his ruby lips.
Well, here’s the face of Miss Monroe
and all the pain it doesn’t show –
a little girl caught in our dreams.
Goodbye, Norma Jean.
I’ll tell you the story of a hard luck kid
who made it bigger than her mama did.
We loved the swaying of her hips
and when she parted those ruby lips.
Recorded by Tony Wagner in Brookland, Maryland, November 2004.
Jeni Hankins, Vocal & Mandolin. Greg Hankins, Guitar & Harmonica.
Molly Johnson, Harmony Vocal.If you’d like to build your own album of Jeni Hankins bootleg recordings, New Song Club members (Paid Subscribers) receive a download of my song of the month every month, plus access to all of the previous songs going back to March of 2024.
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Did you see my recent letter about the wonderful Frye family of Buffalo, New York, and the mystery of the doll clothes???
Jeni Jeni Jeni the maker! What a constant source of bemusement and delight you must have been to your teachers and your parents both, and what an all-the-enthusiasms-at-once astonishment you remain. Thank you for sharing this! Marilyn and Elvis are smiling and humming along, where they are now.
I have definitely also experienced fandom as almost religious!