Empty Nest, Hypercolor, "Groove Is In The Heart," Bugle Boy jeans, endless airings of MTV's Sex In The 90s series—the 90s were a difficult time for us all. Most of us dealt with it the normal way: by putting slap bracelets in our toasters, pressing the bar down, and watching the black smoke billow up to the ceiling. Bono, however, wrote a rambling, looney epic poem about Elvis—one that apparently takes him 14 minutes to recite. Next week, BBC's Radio 4 is going to broadcast all 14 minutes of it because, see, they have this neverending empty white silence to fill, so might as well kill 14 minutes of it with Bono's sub-Seussian tribute to Elvis, right? Right:
From The Times:
The Irish singer has long been a professed superfan of the king of rock’n’roll, and is thought to have written the rhyme, American David, in 1994.
Listeners will be treated to lines such as: “Elvis, with god on his knees/ Elvis, on three TVs/ Elvis, here come the killer bees, head full of honey, potato chips and cheese.”
The BBC has billed it as “delivered plainly, but intensely, by Bono. Some lines are purposefully quintessential Elvis clichés while others make listeners view Elvis in a new light.”
You can read the whole thing here, but below you'll find where it really hits its crazy stride:
elvis hitler/ elvis nixon/ elvis christ/ elvis mishima/ elvis marcus/ elvis jackson/ elvis the pelvis/ elvis the psalmist/ elvis the genius/ elvis the generous/ elvis forgive us
He forgot "Elvis Stalin/ Elvis singer/ Elvis Jones/ Elvis Debra Winger"
Still, sparked by Bono's crazy-eyed, meandering Elvis poem, I've written an ode to Bono that will no doubt be broadcast by Radio 4 some day on their program, "Time Killers." The following is an exerpt from hour 3:
Bono, in massive shades/ Bono, no Kid n' Play fades/ Bono, into the soup he wades/ Bono writing poetry in confined spaces while spraying cans of Raid.