[3:32] Forever Elvis: From Rock Legend to Immortal Icon

Learning English is not only about mastering grammar and vocabulary, but more importantly about using it naturally in real-life situations. However, sentences in textbooks are often too formal, differing greatly from actual everyday expressions. To speak authentic and natural English, you need exposure to real-life dialogues. Here, we have selected frequently used English expressions for daily life, covering social, work, and travel scenarios, helping you break free from 'textbook English' and learn how native speakers truly express themselves. Below is the content for this issue, Episode 4, Part 34: Forever Elvis. Keep building your skills, and make your English closer to real life!

You ain't got a heart of heaven, and you ain't no friend of mine. They called him the King. Elvis Aaron Presley, born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935, could well claim to be the 20th century's most famous entertainer. In 10 short years, his style and sound swept the world. He's from the world, baby. I want to do the left. Jump for two to right. For the rock and roll. Kill the other one. Ready, ready, ready. Ready, ready. Ready, ready. Ready, ready. Ready to rock and roll.

Two years of National Service in West Germany interrupted his recording career, but did nothing to dim his popularity. His combination of white country and western music with black rhythm and blues gave the 50s teenage generation music they could identify with. But his overtly sexual style made him a target for moralists, and racists objected to his heavy borrowing from black music.

His marriage in 1967 to Priscilla, daughter of an army colonel, ended in divorce six years later. Like so many 20th-century idols, Presley was becoming a victim of the fame he attracted. It began to take over his life. Under pressure from his domineering manager, Colonel Tom Parker, Presley embarked on a series of formulaic films. He was now straying far from the kind of music he had mastered in his days in the South, when he sang gospel in the Tupelo Church choir and played guitar in front of a live audience.

By the 70s, Presley was reduced to singing tearful ballads in Las Vegas nightclubs. But the grandiose stage acts were no substitute for the lack of creative inspiration. Presley died in 1977 at his home in Memphis, which had been the center of his musical world for most of his short life. He had been destroyed by alcohol, drugs, fast food, and fast living. His funeral at Graceland was a huge media event.

To this day, Presley's home is a shrine to his memory, a measure of the impact he had on his contemporaries. It is reckoned that since he first took the world by storm in 1956, his earnings from records, films, and merchandising had grossed more than a billion dollars. And his legend lives on. Each year, thousands of sightseers visit the Presley Museum in Tennessee to get a closer sense of what it was like to be the undisputed idol of so many people for so many years.

This concludes the content from Episode 4, Part 34: Forever Elvis, compiled by Qicaiwang. We hope it is of some help to you!