The two places could not have been more different.

Our Graceland experience started when we arrived at the Days Inn motel on Elvis Presley Boulevard, just across the street from the house and grounds. Among the Days Inn’s features are a guitar-shaped pool, a lobby decorated with Elvis memorabilia, an Elvis radio station blaring in the background, and sign in the parking lot that says, “Elvis Fans Parking. Violators Will be All Shook Up.”

The hotel desk clerk, a large black woman with enormous fake eyelashes, recommended that we go to Picadilly’s buffet down the street for lunch. 

The fare there was deep fried food, potatoes, and jello — with a few salads thrown in for good measure. We were the only white folks in the place.  

The House

Our tour of Graceland started with the house – a mansion by 1970s standards, but not so big in today’s world.  Nothing had been changed since Elvis’s death in 1977.

While the living room, dining room, and kitchen reflected casual elegance worthy of a wealthy man, the family room, TV room, and billiard room were pure Vegas, with outlandish fabrics and colors and quirky furniture. Elvis had eclectic taste.

Most everything in the house and grounds was built as a “fun palace” for Elvis and his entourage of family and friends. From what I could gather from my self-guided audio tour, he liked to do things and he liked other people to do those things with him.

At Graceland, you could ride horses, play squash, swim in the pool, watch TV, play billiards, drive recreational vehicles, or jam with the King.  And, if you’d never seen snow before, like his only daughter Lisa Marie, he’d fly you to Colorado and back on his airline sized plane (above) with gold-plated seat belt buckles.

And, boy, did that man have some clothes. 

The jumpsuits from Elvis’s Vegas performances were sparkly and stunning, with open high collars and belt buckles as big as turkey platters.  His squash court has been turned into a mini-museum to house many of these original outfits. 

Such a Talent

But the most striking thing about Graceland was the trophy room – actually a small building that is filled with all of Elvis’s gold records and awards. As I stood gazing at his trophies, I realized the enormous influence and talent of Elvis as a singer and performer.

He didn’t invent rock ‘n roll, but he was the one who brought it into the mainstream. As the marquee at the Days Inn said, “Before Elvis, there was nothing – John Lennon.”

So perhaps it’s because I love rock ‘n roll that I had to see Graceland. To learn more about the man who was born in a “shotgun shack” and grew up to become the most famous singer in the world. 

Yet for all his wealth and fame, Elvis was not a happy person.  

Although they remained friends until his death, he and his only wife, Priscilla, divorced in 1972. They had just one child.  Performances stressed him out and he was reportedly very self-conscious.

Elvis died at age 42 of a drug overdose. 

A sad, untimely end for a man who was gifted and generous, but totally narcissistic. Today, Graceland, for all its frozen-in-time grandness, is a stark reminder that money can’t buy happiness.

Well, since my baby left me,
I found a new place to dwell.
Its down at the end of lonely street
At heartbreak hotel.

You make me so lonely baby,
I get so lonely,
I get so lonely I could die.