L'HISTOIRE DE MELODY NELSON by SERGE GAINSBOURG

Humphrey Bogart in Nicolas Ray’s In A Lonely Place (his best performance, bar none) is a tired and cynical writer who surely knows, even as he writes the story of his love affair with Gloria Graeme, that he is killing it; for when he finishes the script, the affair will die. Beauty must be tarnished. Bogart may or may not be guilty of a murder in that film, but it’s the suspicion that kills the love; hope is futile, in retrospect. And here is Serge Gainsbourg, whispering so close to the microphone as to be almost consuming it, delivering a tale of love as old as time and money, with glorious technicolour hindsight; with the voice of a man who knows bitterly that you can’t nototiate with that most twisted of iron councils, Fate.

‘Les ailes de la Rolls effleuraient des pylônes
Quand m'étant malgré moi égaré
Nous arrivâmes ma Rolls et moi dans une zone
Dangereuse, un endroit isolé’

(‘The Rolls' wings brushed against poles
When despite myself off my path
We arrived my Rolls and I in a dangerous
Zone, an isolated place’)

So begins L’Histoire de Melody Nelson, with the narrator not in control; Not of the Rolls, or of himself, or of events. Melody Nelson, the 15 year old subject of the fourty-something narrator’s attention, will lose her virginity and then die as she flees home after their brief affair, the victim of a curse placed on the aircraft by the spurned Serge. This is how it must be. This is how it always was. Such a perfect beauty must perish.
Melody, track one of this story record, sidles in with an almost sickly, jaunty funk; it is a spare bass drums and guitar arrangement, loose and sauntering. When Gainsbourg’s voice enters, a low, resigned sigh pushed disorientatingly loud in the mix, it is an instrument that conveys the knowledge that it’s owner is himself but an instrument of the Gods. He is waiting for St. Peter’s verdict with little attention on the outcome, for he knows what it will be. This is a listlessness born of knowledge. It’s truly dangerous. He knows the handcart to Hell and Heaven follow the same dirty routes. His are spent forces. A man capable of a crime of non- passion. An Atlas who turned his burden in a ditch; a Hercules who is finished with his labour’s and still no closer to the end. He is tired of love in a way only romantics can be. He’s boxed too many rounds with those shadows, and knows the judges are bent. And from this position, we recieve the story of Melody Nelson.
Ballade de Melody Nelson, track two, is utterly sublime, with Jane Birkin as Melody finishing lines in that breathless smile of a voice, and slips by in two minutes; Valse de Melody and Ah! Melody, grander and sadder, are shorter than that. After the lengthy, meandering opening track, three gorgeous, out and out declarations of love disappear over the horizon in a blink. After the broody set up of L’Hotel Particulier, a downbeat string-led walk through the layout of the mansion where the narrator and Melody are going to find a room, the scene is set. Then, we are disturbed by a spazzy funk, and En Melody, the consumation of the romance, is jolly throwaway and all the more perverse for it. The only voice heard is Birkin’s as Melody, and she does not speak. She cackles a genuine cackle, and that death rattle of a laugh, is funny; and laughter is never funny. In place of a more earnestly romantic gesture, (like the swooning she did on Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus) this is a thumbed nose.
The tightrope between parody and melody, between love and hate, meaning and flippancy, is walked throughout Gainsbourg’s career, it’s his biggest strength, and it’s also what denies him entry into the pantheon (besides being witty in a foreign tongue). He treats pretty faces and petty faeces with equal import; high art with loud farts. And so the consumation here must be a cheeky joust, as Serge continues to drag us from the ridiculous to the sublime, becuase that is how life is with the fates, one huge joke at the romantic’s expense. In being contrary and perverse he personifies both why the English-speaking world has such disdain for foreign pop and why we are lazy fools. Expressions of confusion, emotional complexity or doubt are surely the most pertinent ones, and yet we repeatedly turn our backs. Sigh. Serge’s greatest hit, Je T’aime...Moi Non Plus could only get banned for being too raunchy in England, and then later become a symbol to us of sex-obsessed Frenchness, when in reality it is a send-up of the old-man-being-seduced-by-a-young-girl-yeah-in-your-daydreams macho-frolic, with sharp lyrics, as well as being a poignantly rendered romantic anthem in it’s own right (laughing, giggling together being the height of romance of course, you at the back). This means that it is, to these ears at least, the kind of have-your-cake-and-eat-it mind trick that only a particular streak of genius can fire. That’s the thing with the English. We think that because we’re funny that no-one else can be. And so Serge became the dirty old Frenchman in the country he least wanted to be, ours.
Love dies. Bogart offered Graeme too many embraces that smothered; displayed too many grabs and holds that conveyed murder and danger; doubts emerged, but they were doomed all along. There is no certainty greater than the certainty of killing one’s greatest love. The Rules mean that as it always was is how it shall always be. Bogart carried the countenance of a man who knew it and didn’t like it, but was powerless to stop it; the best that can happen under such sufferance is to find a sadistic pleasure in the self-destruction, the kind that Gainsbourg finds here, as he curses his love, destroys her and smiles oh so bitterly at his own failures.
And so the record ends with Cargo Culte, which musically is a retread of the opener, and repeats the introduction of Melody (‘Tu t'appelles comment ? -Melody. - Melody comment ? - Melody Nelson’). Hello as goodbye. Serge’s bitterly stinging, sweet hex on his love kills her, but he was God’s device. A heavenly choir sings, and we have the crescendo that has been denied for so long, an almost overwrought, parodic finish.

FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, BE LIKE STING

And now a look at the new releases. Some sumptuous reviews, fresh off the slab:

IDLE BANTER 'Idle Banter's Jizz Idiocy'

If Idle Banter weren't a real live functioning group, i'd have to invent them. Prog-Jazz-Funk-Glam's very own Spinal Tap were given up for dead after the critical mauling and horrible sales of their 20th studio opus in 1996. The African-tribal inflected 'In dee Jungle' whose sleeve infamously pictured the suspiciously sucked-in paunches of drummer Vic De'ath and bassist Ed Sexie draped in full native garb and garlanded with blushing bush babes may have been a somewhat hamfisted attempt at social commentary (something about 'the blacks' as singer Gizz Black put it in a clanger of an interview with Q magazine at the time) , but the music contained within was alone enough to bury the poor sods to eye-level, containing as it did lashings of reactionary witterings about 'the dark peoples of the dark lands' over tired 'A-Wim-Bo-Way' cliches and meandering guitar solos. 'Float Like A Butterfly, Be Like Sting' was a case in point, a turgid holier-than-thou shrine to the Jamaican ex-Police saviour of the Indians, with 'Have you ever lived in a cave? It's no rave!' as the final nail in it's chorus.
So fans of the earlier, more flash and fun stff will be relieved that the recharged Idle Banter have seen their folly somewhat on Jizz Idiocy; 'Down 'er Neck' and 'Leotard Trouble' are throaty returns to the stalking-horse macho mini-dramas that gave the band such a run of hits at the arse-end of the Glam Era, albeit that these efforts are a bit more of, well, an effort. Their lyrics let them down again on the dated-before-they-were-minted 'Latte Par-tay? No Way!' a diatribe against coffee shops, and 'Celebrity Squared', a rant about, yes, celebrities, and how boring they are. The requisite lovesong, 'I Need You Baby' is the most emotionally challenging five minutes you'll have all year. The death of former guitarist Steve Handstand in 9/11 casts a shadow over the end of the album, and the closer 'Don't Leave, Steve' is the best argument for dying heard in years, it's case being furnished by a turkey of a performance by the band, all obvious sugar and weighty strings. A confusing mixture of aged bragging and phoney sensitivity then. Nothing sadder than the once non-greats becoming hasn't-beens. But if you liked the early stuff, etc etc.

SPORT AID 'Don't Fear The Keeper'

In which, yes! for the sake of the kids who can't afford hockeysticks and goalie gloves we have: the headscratching phenomenon of a record that no-one will remember next week, a Mission Impossible-style self-destructing disc made reality by virtue of being so moribund and irresponsible as to literally dig it's own grave through the CD bit in Woolworths, only to be found and treasured as a time-capsule by those vastly superior future civilisations who will take us to be, on this evidence, the crude self-loathing lumberers we truly are.
The Three Tenners, (as they are sub-hilariously billed here, a Davro of a joke that comes some sixteen years after football's brief flirt with opera circa Italia 90) Mark 'Lawro' Lawrenson, Alan 'Al' Hansen and Gary 'Gary' Lineker vomit smug audio-bile over Blue Oyster Cult's seductive death-lollop (yes, your fears are realised, for it is a cover, nay, a smothering, of the hit of yore), with all the subtlety of a Jossie's Giants counter-attack.
And yes, in the chorus, believe your weary ears, that is Peter Schmeichel in his pondourous Scando-Manc, doing the worst Schwarzenegger impression you've heard since your Dad popped out to B&Q and on his departure said 'I'll Be Back'. Oh joy. In the words of a dissenter at Live 8: 'If the lives of African children depend on Dido, then they deserve more pity than even Geldof can suck out of us'. Do the kids a favour. Lend them your old shin-pads and buy them a can of Coke instead of this.

DRIZZLE CRUMPET 'Old-fashioned Bike'
If Dali is the Elvis of Surrealism, these boys are Fish. But what does that make Marillion?

SPURIOUS MANIFESTO, POINTLESS PROJECT

Self-Savagery 103: Write a manifesto to fit your achievement, or lack of it. Claim your failings are a deliberate act of protest. This is Self-Savagery in exelsis: justifying to yourself, not only your complete lack of success, but going so far as to claim that failure of the precise kind you know well was what you coveted all along. Once I tried, after the column Notes and Queries, to write a book called Quotes and Nearlies, which was to be composed entirely of straight lifts from everybody else’s good ideas, and some second rate ones of my own. Every time I felt the urge to touch myself I wrote instead. If you must, busy yourself with pointless projects, such as compendiums of half ideas stitched together untidily with spurious manifestos.

SHORT SHARP LESSONS

'Not all good things say good things' Garry Mulholland on Duran Duran.

There. My clumsy rant under the banner of THE UNIMPORTANCE OF IMPORTANCE distilled into elegance. An example, to paraphrase Clive James, of the fact that all good novels would make wonderful short stories, all good stories would make amazing paragraphs, all good paragraphs would be even better sentences...

Never let it be said that editing is anything less than the highest form of creation.

SELECTIONS FROM THE KING'S NOTEBOOKS: FINAL PART

This might be mah last entry, August 15th, year of our Lord nineteen seventy-seven, and ah hope to set a few things straight.
The truth, such as it is, can get lost in a sea of innuendoes, particularly when the principal passes into secret sanctums. And ah feel that publically, mah position has been misrepresented somewhat. Ah need to lift a few boulders off mah chest, to release the weight on this soon-to-be celestial ribcage and this soon-to-be celestial heart.
Now first, and maybe most severe: Never let it be said that towards the end ah was a tired showman sick of tired shows; Ah was always proud to be a humble singer of songs. And just sometimes, when a particular disposition or instinct swung over on me, shining it's good light, I didn't have to grapple with the words or wrestle with the form; ah found it easy. And although later on I ascertained that certain illnesses were conflicting with my main desire, to entertain the people, never let it be said that ah lost that said desire, that it was spent like a dime; because that kind of desire cannot be spent, you toss it and it comes back threefold.
And those there other rumours y'all been hearing are all falsified information, gutter chat, tired trash. Remember what is true: I am an eighth degree blackbelt in Karate. Ah am a Federal Agent. You'll find they don't give those garlands out lightly, not to anyone stuck fast on those street-peddled narcotic creations. Any problem I ever had was my black illnesses, my gippin' heart. Any medications for my multitude ailments was always prescribed, fact.
Mah fiscaliture of the purse and of the soul was what gets me down. On mah death, notations will be cited to St.Peter, and a full report will be sent to the procurator fiscal. Oh, in mah time ah have given one two many rats to one two many snakes; and most of them are still here, just awaiting for me to suggest we get out the guns and shoot some trees, or crash some cars around the gardens. And then they'll slope off, taking their wage wth them, to entertain ladies in bars with tales of The King an' how he's gone blown it all except his voice.
For all my health complaints, I humbly note that my voice is still golden; perhaps even better than ever, drilled through with just a little pain.
But who in this crowd is mah enemy? Who is the poison? Ah look them all in their pairs of pupils an' see that they all look back true and hard. Ah have to consult with higher powers on such matters, it seems, for mah instincts are surly primates who have run away to sunnier climates.
Oh, those gathered around me, ah've always treated kind-heartedly and respectfully (unlike little Lisa-Marie, who'd threaten to fire them for having girls other than their wives sitting on their knees throwing bourbon down their collars, or for not preparing her pancake to the correct hue and texture), but they're conspiring. But ah do not blame them. They are part of a grand plan, grander than any except the Lord above. Their plan is one that will see me in mah grave, shot dead. Ah do not know who leads this ring but ah know they're a-comin.
Ah turned to the scriptures, but only found fatgued psalmists with old stories; they only tell me that ah really am a peculiarly fetid monarch, fated to squalor in mah own piss at the expense of mah child and her mother. So ah turn to mah direct line with the biggest man: Help me Lord, to know the right thing. Ah'm looking for clues everywhere; in the attic, the basement. Ah know this place is bugged. But Lord, Ah know, with your due assistance, and ah say this humbly: Ah am indestructible. The numbers say ah will die murdered on August 16th 1978, tomorrow.. But ah know I can change that. Ah can break out of this grand plan that fate has created for me, and ah will.
And I realise that for oh so long, mah instincts have been dulled, mah fancies suspicious. But I vow to stop it and take control of mah own here destinies. Ah learned of mah fate when ah was visited by mah twin Jesse during one particularly fruitfal spell of slumber; Lord, you sent mah twin to see me only last night to deliver a message. And ah saw Jesse, pretty as Christ himself, and ah listerned.
Oh Jesse, ah miss you.
But back to mah peelin' front, mah ditherin reputation: Ah stand here and ah say, mah name will not be shaken down; it is strong, four syllables, rythmic and tight. Ah will fight tonight. Natural forces must be obeyed, for sure, but when they're marshalled by those that prevail toward the Satanic quarter, well, anything other than resistance is but a coward's way. Ah stand tall and offer what 'Cilla always called mah 'Fire Eyes'.
So tonight ah will play racquetball, play mah piano songs, then retire. Ah will behave as if I suspect nothin' of those around me. Ah will wait in mah bedroom, with a selection from mah righteous gun cupboard, and ah will wait. Perhaps ah will lock mahself in mah bathroom- it has only one door through which the murderers can come a-passin. And ah'll be ready.
And if ah should be shot through the gut as mah dream announced, than ah must say: ah will not die sittin'.
Ah have computated and purtained a certain humble crystal knowledge from all of this. All of us are wire-wool-brained freaks. The modern information ages as chilled as their Ice counterparts for us breathing mammals, for sure. There's wind in the wires, a conspiratorial ether, and ah can't say ah've come close to figurin' much out in mah time, except to say that ah know now that someone is a-comin' and ah am a resistin.
Ah've had psychic cosmonauts and darn good sports, authorties and invigilators, but they're all hollow! Salt-shakers! All except mah mentor, that righteous man, the gent who could dicapitate a man with his mind, whose chops are a winning argument, whose kicks will be explodin' and supposin' to inform the unrighteous of the score in this game.
But he ain't here, not now, and ah do need his counsel. Police? The police never hear, not truly. Ah'm a certified agent of this country, in it's employ, and for mah love and effort ah do not receive gainful protection, no sir. The rich are their own country. Mah pockets are laced with silver and gold, and that is mah reward and burden. Ah'm a fire hazard. And ah'm almost done. Ah'm growing paradise flowers as preparation for my reparation with the Lord. Vile indemnifications begone. The answer has not come forth Lord, not the big answerin' answers to the big questionin' questions anyhow; Ah have spoken to The Great Postman, and seen His Immortal Sack, from which feline mewings could be heard; but he did not release the rope. In immortal heaven I might well see tyings untied, and the contents spewed forth into a swirl of giddy fun games, in which golden truth is a ball of wool for that little Tigress, freed from her bag, to chase with and unravel, leaving a trail of answers behind her. Ah that little tigress.
But I digress.
Just in case this is goodbye: Lisa Marie, mah girl, ah have a new song. You'd like it, it kicks like your favourites, and swings like a tree. The words, well, the bit that counts is this:

Your Body is a temple
And I'm Jesus Christ (the Lord)
Getting angry at the traders
Who dwell inside (on board)

Your transluscent hair ribbons, Lisa-Marie, well they stick in mah throat, metaphorically speaking. And your lips, like your Daddy's, tickled by a burn, stung by a wasp. Be good. Tell your mother ah love her. Ah Cilla, I'll say it mahself, but you know you were the one. I remember your face that day we took a trip up to Santa Monica when we got ourselves a divorce. Ah remember holding your hand throughout, in the court, and you don't think I didn't notice your alarm at my hands . y'always said mah hands were soft, and right then they were as puffy as hell. Ah noticed your face. And it made me sadder than anything since my Ma went.
Well ah've been puffy for sometime and ah'm apologetic sweetheart, right to the pit of mah stomach.


Pops? Pops, Ah'm tired. Ah love you an' Ah'm tired.

THE UNIMPORTANCE OF IMPORTANCE

Self-Savagery 102: Be aware that commentary on war and other supposedly 'serious' subjects is the quickest way to render your work tawdry and cheap. Like sticking sequins on jeans. See the difference between art about important subjects and important art. They are not the same, and frequently far far away from one another.


'How can you say that film was bad? It was about the war in Iraq! The invasion of Afghanistan! The exploitation of the Middle East by corporate greed! That's important!'
'Still a bad film.'
'But it expressed a sentiment that was entirely in keeping with your own. It expressed your exact position. You agree with the film-makers!'
'Still a bad film.'

Be strong on these matters! Be bold! Some of the worst films ever made suggest that 'rape is bad' or that 'being nice to each other is nice'. Example:

Battle Royale 2, an admittedly already predictably tired explosion of it's predecessor's thin formula, steered itself into offensively awful territiory (nay, dangerously offensive, quite something for a comedy horror-fest) with it's laughably patronising National Geographic-style footage of some poverty-stricken inhabitants of a not-named Middle Eastern state laughing and playing and thus teaching the main character about the meaning of, well, something (Poor people are happy? Brown people are nice? War is wrong? Innocence is destroyed by war? No poo, Poirot.). Thus a lame and hurried b-movie sequel becomes an unwieldy weapon; it becomes worth ignoring.

An achievement, all-round, really.

The best war films are comedies and the best comedies are war films anyway.

ADVICE, EFFORT, GOAL

Self-Savagery no7: Elevate your worst ideas and bury the good ones. Never try.

Self-Savagery no88: Avoid acts of humility or bravery. Giving up your own life to save another is no act of courage. It is an admission of defeat. Only those who acknowledge their own inferiority can be selfless.

The following is an exchange I had with a caring and desperate young soul unblemished by failure and tarnished by ambition:
‘You must write truthfully,’ she said, admonishing some of my more pricarious and fantastical prose.
‘I do.' I replied. 'Truthful and true aren’t the same thing.’
She rolled her eyes at what she believed to be wordplay.
‘Get angry.' she said. 'Get passionate. Write from the heart. That's what the greats do.'
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,' I replied. 'You will insist on talking in this meaningless way. Besides, my heart would produce particularly drab writing. It’s only when I try to be heartless that there is a flicker.’

Self-Savagery 45: Write about what you don't know. Start with yourself.

BRUTALITY, DOROTHY, RE-ENTRY

Self-Savagery 51: Ah, the abstract brutality of the world: You'll never take it's measure. Just when you cannot contemplate your brilliance, and the world's ignorance of this, things will change; and you will become more brilliant, and the world will turn it's back yet further.

In the words of (I believe) Dorothy, at the point when the boat is about to sink at the end of The Wizard of Oz:

'I'm feeling very strident baby
Strident on this theme
The world is just not fair babe
There is no karmic scheme'

Or, if I may indulge your patience, in the words of myself:

'If flair is combustible,
Then I will fry
Upon re-entry
My wings will melt and die'

FIRE!

Self-Savagery no16: Fire indiscriminately. Don’t name your targets. If you must name them, pluck them randomly from a list. Attack yourself first at all costs. Turn on your friends at every opportunity. Apologise to strangers that you’ve never insulted. Change the names of fictional characters. Keep the names of real people.

FURTHER THOUGHT-FOOD FOR THEE

Self-Savagery no 34: Remember, artists are not brave. Not unless they pique the wrath of a militant faction of a religious group, or defy an oppressive regime. In these cases, one might suggest a certain aspect of Self-Savagery is at play; death brings immortality and is indeed an excellent career choice for the lazy.

Self-Savagery no 12: Embrace whimsy. Then give her up if you’re bored. But if you set out to write something important you’re already finished. It it will inevitably be only merely good, and lapped up by the half-brains out there. They’ll say it’s brave and the people will vote you a winner. Avoid this fate at all costs. Awards only mean something if they’re decided not by the millions but by a panel (preferably no more than one) of elitist snobs, preferably ar arbitrarily as possible. All bad decisions are made my groups, all inspired ones by individuals. the masses cannot be trusted. Do not turn your back on them.

SELECTIONS FROM THE KING'S NOTEBOOKS: PART TWO

And then, the next night, ah dreamed; ah dreamed of me and mah boys, of us all in a bar, the guys and mahself, just shooting pool, breathing in the fun, when in walked Lana Turner, and sat with Bobby; in walked Audrey Hepburn, and sat with Sal; Then Natalie came and sat with me. Ah haven't thought of her in a while, and I awoke in a river of tears, no dam.
The next day, well, y'all should know that ah like firing mah gun at the target that hangs on the door of the shed housing our supply of fireworks. Misfire, and ah set off all kinds of explosions. Lisa Marie, well often she'd come a running from the Jungle Room where she'd be watching Sesame Street; Ah'd be sitting on my lawn chair, gun still smoking.
'Don't worry, baby,' Ah'd say. 'A snake crawled out of the tree, but now it's not ging to bother anyone.'
Well, that day Lisa Marie wasn't there. An that day ah misfired big, and the shed kicked and brayed like a mule when ah hit it; the sky lit up like Chritmas, and the boys screamed out encouragin me to put more bullets into that thing, truly make it catch and hold til it burned to the ground. And ah did, and colours tainted the sky wondrously; pinks like the apron my mah would wipe mah face down with, yellows fried with butter, sad as the crushed flies ah used to kill in the yard, and just as bright and consistent, greens jittery and pokery like limericks, spitting all over, reds like poems, blues like one of them particularly fine rains, oranges brandied and warmed, cinnamon sweet, whites as a hot Christmas parcel; And golds silvers and bronzes that reflected mah Olympic wealth across the sky, not just mah value in monetary terms, no sir, but my spiritual essence, mah familial existence, mah child and her mother. Ah was laughing like a parakeet.
'Ah ain't felt this good in a while boys!' ah proclaimed. The vista was truly something to behold.
'Ah ain't seen anything this good since ah saw Audrey Hepburn in the flesh at that shebang we was at!' said Sal, pointing at a particularly pretty ensemble of colour flashing before us
'Ah ain't seen anything this good since ah first had a watery dream about Lana Turner,' said Bobby, jumping n the spot.
At that, ah shivered like a particularly frosty spirit had just walked through mah standing corpse.
Every night after this, ah dreamed about minutae of the following days that would then replay in front of mah eyes like a television movie, only now it was in the shivering realities of mah life, and not in the soggy machinations of mah dream.
Everyday, the numbers came up that ah knew would come up. Ah could have one the lottery draw for every State several times over.

Now all of this ah can scrub out as mere shiny coincidence and as the comic creation of mah tired brains. But no, ah can't, not really. Because far more severe than all this, is the unutterable fact that ah will utter: ah have forseen my death. In this dream form; ah have forseen that they will come for me, and when, and that ah will be crucially naked and unprotected on that day. Ah will be taken in by a devil, not with ruby lips and a promise, but by a gunshot from someone close to mahself; someone in mah inner circle will shoot me down.
And this seems to be something that ah will ponder for some time. It's a needle of truth that stabs mah camel and leaves me stranded in mah wilderness postulatin' and discombobulatin' about it for some time.

Let me tell you of mah dream.

Firstly, ah had the sensation that ah was not mahself; That ah was dreaming that ah was myself. That is how the dreams start; with me thinking that ah am me, Elvis, only in the dream, when of course ah am mahself in living too. It's somethin' ah remember Mr Sinatra said he dreamed all the time: That he was Mr Sinatra. 'I just need a whisky to remind myself when I wake up that I really am that shitkicker,' he'd said, laughing.
Well, in mah dream ah was dreaming of a Gracelands that ah suppose someone outside might expect- it had grand fountains of pink lemonade in the hall, and a room made of entirely rubber in which to throw ourselves; you got to it by sliding from a huge chute that started att he top of a turret in the north-east corner of the building. There was an ice-cream kitchen and a savoury one, with separate staff doing shifts of eight hours consecutive to one another, meaning that every kitchen was staffed at any deep night hour. The beds were twenty metres by twenty metres, and were soft as a boxing ring canvas. It was just how I imagine those who have never visited imagine it to be.
Into that unholy heaven, that sweet Valhalla, that sugary Babylon, came horror; in walked a shadowy gunman, disguised in a black hat, but ah was sure ah knew him, ah was sure he was a member of mah trusted entourage, one of mah righteous inner circle, disguised as Death; he bore with him one of mah larger and shinier magnums, and ah saw it pointing at me, jerking as if excitable, ah knew ah was alone. Ah knew the rest of mah boys were useless to me now; Ah knew they were just limping fidgets in the face of the biggest question that was facing me. Ah could hear them in the other rooms, dispatching the fine fare from the kitchen like it was nuts at a bar or cussed cat-eats. But ah could not shout, for ah was too scared. And anyhow, they were surely in on this whole ruinous plot to put The King in his grave.
Ah heard the shot, ah felt it enter mah soft belly, and ah cursed mahself for not being young and lithe enough to shimmy out of that cursed trajectory. Ah saw the aftermath, mah Pa's tears, Lisa-Marie, poor little girl, she was there, the newspapers, the hubbub, the fuss; Elvis shot dead, August 16th, 1978. Three days time.

That was mah dream. And this mah me a tired and twitchy vow, nervous and with a weak pulse, but aho promise this: Ah will not let it happen like this. No sir.