Where were you/what were you doing when you heard that Elvis had died?

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

I was coming home from Fenwick Camping Park with my Dad, Mom and friend...the radio announcer..."The king is dead..."

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

the news didn't quite seem real

[Nicolas]

I don't know what I'll be doing when Elvis dies.

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

righto

[Swift]

I don't know what I'll be doing when Elvis dies.

Ditto, I have no memory of it. I thought (and still think) his music is ok, but he wasn't my king.

[mike alexander]

No particular recollection, since musically he had died about ten years previously.

[Nicolas]

I didn't know Elvis Costello was dead.

[Swift]

I didn't know Elvis Costello was dead.

No, he just married Diana Krall.

[Paracelsus]

Was twinkling in my dad's eye at the time.

[jrkeller]

Flying on an airplane from Frankfurt Germany to McGuire Airforce Base in New Jersey.

[Nicolas]

No, he just married Diana Krall.

The difference is subtle.

[The_Radiation_Specialist]

Who is Elvis?

[pilgrim]

Was twinkling in my dad's eye at the time.

I wasn't even that yet...

[antoniseb]

I was on-set rehearsing a play called "No Opera at the Opry House Tonight", but frankly we were more sad over the recent losses of Groucho Marx and Zero Mostel.

[Gillianren]

Since I'm 30, I probably wasn't doing much. My mom's a big Elvis fan, though not the scary kind, so she probably remembers.

[jfribrg]

This doesn't rank up there with the events that altered the course of history, but I do remember where I was. I was 14 years old and it was a Tuesday night. I played at a chess club every Tuesday night. I was walking home when my older brother drove by to pick me up. when I got in the car, he told me the news. Neither he nor I were particularly saddened by the news, since our taste in music didn't include Elvis (we used to call him Elvis the Pelvis). A couple of years later when I heard the news about John Lennon, I was saddened, but Elvis' passing didn't provoke any emotions one way or the other.

[farmerjumperdon]

Born in 1956, I was a touch on the young side to appreciate him during his peak. So although I recognized his death as big news at the time, he was not an icon for me - then. Since then I have come to appreciate his talents and consider him one of the best ever. I love his rock n' roll stuff, and don't know how anybody can stop themselves from foot-tapping when they are played.

I feel the same way about Sinatra, Cash, and others; except that I did come to an appreciation of them while they were still alive. Do you think there is an appreciable difference between liking an artist while they are stil alive as opposed to after they die? The answer could haunt me forever.

Or not.

[Ilya]

Where? No idea. When? Same time that I first heard he ever existed, which had to be at least months after immigrating to the US. Unlike (for example) Beatles, Elvis was totally unknown in Russia. Still is, for that matter.

[Disinfo Agent]

Watching some documentary about Elvis on TV. I was a kid when he died.

[Graybeard6]

I was at home in Huntsville, Alabama. I had retired from the army on April 1, and was about to start college classes. My first thought was "He's 4 months younger than me, and he'll never get any older." I was not a big fan, but I liked most of his stuff, especially the songs by Lieber & Stoller.
A little trivia: that morning, the director of the vonBraun civic center got a telegram confirming that Elvis would start his next tour in Huntsville. I was already on the list for tickets.

[Van Rijn]

I was home (and pretty young). I wasn't a fan, and only really had remembered him from some silly movies (the type you watch for five minutes before changing the channel). I heard it on the news and mentioned it later some time to my mother - and it bothered her a lot more than I expected, since she wasn't a real fan. Her response (and the common "Elvis lives" jokes after that) are the only reasons I remember it.

[Kelfazin]

I was in Salt Lake City....learning to use the big boy toilet probably.

[Pip]

I know that half of me was in an ovary at the time, seeing as I was -12.

[Noclevername]

Don't remember, don't care. Lots of people die, am I supposed to mourn someone I never met just because he was famous?

[Kelfazin]

Don't remember, don't care. Lots of people die, am I supposed to mourn someone I never met just because he was famous?

I don't think you have to know somebody to mourn their loss. I mourned the loss of Douglas Adams because I would never again get to read a new HGTTG book, for example. You can mourn the loss of their art, or knowledge, or whatever. Elvis' music was very well liked, and those that liked it were sad that he died. Nothing wrong with that

[Whirlpool]

I dont know , I wasn't born when he died , maybe im still in the process of becoming a baby under my mom's ovary ...

[Obviousman]

My mom's a big Elvis fan, though not the scary kind.....

Now that is GOLD!

[novaderrik]

i was probably rolling around in a pile of dirt somewhere, or whatever it is that kids do when they are 2 1/2 months from their third birthday.

[Maksutov]

I was on-set rehearsing a play called "No Opera at the Opry House Tonight", but frankly we were more sad over the recent losses of Groucho Marx and Zero Mostel.

Ditto.

Losing Groucho was a real blow. I almost retired my fine, expensive, genuine Caribbean alligator-hide quip with the leather hilt after that.

Zero will never be replaced. I always wondered what he was munching on while Gene Wilder was prancing around the fountain at Lincoln Center.

I was driving from my job as a quality control supervisor to the post office in Marion, CT, while listening to a hyperventilating announcer talk about the ambulance, the doctors, and then Mr. Presley having succumbed.

All I could think of re that was, my poor sister, who had gone crazy in front of the B&W TV when Presley had first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

[Maksutov]

[edit]Neither he nor I were particularly saddened by the news, since our taste in music didn't include Elvis (we used to call him Elvis the Pelvis)....

At least he made out better nickname-wise than his brother Enos.