Official Review: Elvis Presley's Hips and Mick Jagger's L...

[PashaRu]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Elvis Presley's Hips and Mick Jagger's Lips" by Susana H Case.]

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A blending of life, love, loss, pain, joy, music, and history across several generations, Elvis Presley’s Hips & Mick Jagger’s Lips by Susana H. Case is a collection of poems inspired by rock ‘n roll. The important events in our lives often have some kind of musical link or attachment – be it a concert, song, album, crush on a famous musician, tragedy involving a band or musician – and into these the author, either directly or indirectly, gives us a glimpse.

The book is divided into three sections. The first, “The Honey Thing,” contains 15 poems which are loosely about relationships. These poems, however, are not sentimental and sweet, but honest and raw. The first poem, “There’s Someone in My Head but It’s Not Me,” is about attending a Pink Floyd concert in India “with my best friend Sharlene/whom I first met last week in Varanasi,” and the unimportance of which new acquaintance, “Rain Dance” or “Flower,” she will sleep with that night. “A Cathedral of Affection” is about the singing of the author’s love interest, and ends with “You sing this way for me/your bad girl/your dancing girl/your girl to end all girls.” Some of the selections are more like narratives than poems, such as “A Jamaican Sailor’s Forbidden Love,” where, “Holed up in my bedroom, playing hooky from school, we play the Kingsmen’s disc at 33 RPM, instead of 45 RPM and listen really hard to “Louie Louie's" forbidden words.” The selection relates how unintelligible the lyrics were (due mostly to a bad recording), and how the song actually became the subject of an FBI investigation. Such bits and pieces of rock ‘n roll history are sprinkled throughout the poems.

The second section is entitled “Mood Alteration.” As expected, some of the poems in this section deal with the sad reality of the rock ‘n roll scene – drugs and death. Various poems relate to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s tragic death in a helicopter in 1990 (“sober for three [years] before he strapped/himself into a Bell 206B’s/last seat, going to Chicago.”), the substance abuse of The Ramones, the stampede at a concert by The Who in 1979 that resulted in the deaths of eleven people (“Bodies, contused bodies/the confusion of bruised breath/too few open doors.”). “Murdered by a Melody” laments the loss of the more carefree days before the 1980s, with the author being “tone deaf/in the about-to-change world/moments before HIV, PCP, 2C-B/CDSC.”

In the third section, entitled “Do a Song About It,” the poem “Symptoms of Lovoholic Addiction” recalls the police raid on a bar known as blind pig in 1967 Detroit, which led to a five-day riot and the deaths of 43 people. The very next poem, “Wailing and Howling at a Dry Moon,” is about the fire at the Station Nightclub in Rhode Island during a Great White concert in 2003. One hundred people perished in the fire. “This, too/is rock and roll, the saddest part.” The poem “Shakespeare’s Sister Doesn’t Want You” recalls Grace Slick’s attempt to slip LSD into Richard Nixon’s tea and wonders if Watergate or the bombing of Cambodia would have happened if “Tricky Dick” had “toyed with LSD.” And the poem “The Day the Music Died” takes a page from Don McLean, but unlike McLean’s song, it is a rather unsentimental review of the 1959 plane crash that killed The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly.

This collection of poems presents an unvarnished look at the some of the wreckage left in rock ‘n roll’s wake, but also a personal glimpse into how these songs are linked to the author personally, with subjects like heartbreak, unrequited love, lost love, and divorce mentioned more than once. I found most of the poems to be sad and melancholy. There are a few exceptions, such as “Down Lonely Street,” where the writer recollects Elvis Presley’s “loose and twisty-hipped promise of sex” and “a rumored Coke bottle/stuffed in his crotch,” and she only wanted to see “the rock, the roll/of Presley’s televised pelvis” on the Ed Sullivan Show. And a few poems have to do with fulfilled love, but these poems are somewhat cryptic and inaccessible.

The poems cover decades of rock ‘n roll music, from 1954’s “Never” by Carlyle Dundee and the Dundees to the early 2000’s. Mentioned are Big Joe Turner, Don McLean, The Sex Pistols, Mick Jagger, Bill Haley, Leon Russell, Jefferson Airplane, and others. The poems aren’t strictly about the music itself, but events (both public and personal), feelings, and memories which are linked to this genre. One or two poems evoke the carefree, Bohemian, joyful side of rock ‘n roll, especially in the early days. I would have liked to see more of these.

Case’s poetry can be terse and powerful, with unique similes and metaphors and evocative imagery. Some of the poems are a bit enigmatic, and I often felt a disconnect between the title of the poem and the poem itself. Few of the poems evoked any strong feelings with me, but individual lines and stanzas resonated from time to time as I was reading. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars.

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[ALynnPowers]

Wow, so much of this poetry collection would have gone right over my head! I know nothing about music, especially historical!

This is me, when it comes to poetry/music:

[PashaRu]

Hahaha! Well, poetry is tricky. If it's good, it can reach down right into your gut. If it's bad, abstract, or just plain weird, then people who want to sound smart will nod their heads and pretend they get it. The music is much more accessible to me, and that aspect of the book was interesting.

[bookowlie]

Hahaha! Well, poetry is tricky. If it's good, it can reach down right into your gut. If it's bad, abstract, or just plain weird, then people who want to sound smart will nod their heads and pretend they get it. The music is much more accessible to me, and that aspect of the book was interesting.

Good point! I enjoyed reading your review. The subject matter seems unique and interesting. I also think the book's title will attract many readers.

[PashaRu]

Thanks! If you're a fan of poetry or rock music anywhere from the 50s to the early 2000s, you'll probably find something interesting here.

[bookowlie]

I used to be a big poetry fan in high school and college...even wrote some poetry of my own. I guess it was the whole sensitive, coming of age thing. I am not a huge rock music fan...my taste tends to be R & B. Still, I like reading about newsworthy topics, and rock music certainly fits the bill.

[PashaRu]

I don't have many poetry books on the shelf, and the ones I have I rarely get out and read. Although (for some reason) lately I've been thinking more about Walt Whitman, and I might sit down with Leaves of Grass for a few minutes to see how it strikes me. I think what constitutes "good" and "bad" poetry is extremely subjective, much more so than prose. Someone can tell me that a fiction book is good, and I'll give at least a little consideration to their opinion. If someone tells me that a certain poet or poetry is good, it doesn't mean much to me at all. I'll really have to check it out myself.

[gali]

Great review, thank you.

[PashaRu]

Thanks gali!