It was reported today that Paul McCartney visited Elvis Presley's grave at Graceland and left a guitar pick there as a token. This was Sir Paul's first trip to Graceland, Elvis' Memphis home. The Beatles met Elvis while they were on tour in the Sixties but that meeting took place at a rental house in Southern California, not at Graceland.
I wonder how Paul feels knowing that reportedly Elvis hated The Beatles. Elvis felt The Beatles not only were responsible for the decline of his popularity in the late Sixties but he also blamed their influence on the social unrest of the younger generation and of the growing problem of drug abuse among the young. What a drag it would be to think your ultimate hero, the person who inspired you to become a rock musician to begin with, not only didn't like your music but despised what you stand for as a person. That would suck.
However, I don't believe those reports of Elvis not approving of The Beatles and their ilk were the whole story. Wanting to fight the growing influence of the invading foreigners (British Invasion musicians) and drug abuse were reasons Elvis gave to then president Richard M. Nixon when he requested a DEA badge from Nixon while visiting the White House. Elvis also claimed he "collected badges" so Nixon actually gave him one. Years later, after Elvis' death, it became widely reported that Elvis himself had a serious drug problem and that the reason he "collected badges" was so he could legally carry and transfer drugs across state lines. His DEA badge, being a Federal organization, superseded all the State badges he had acquired over the years such as Sheriff badges which gave him some protection but not on a national level. His big talk about protecting the country from The Beatles and drug abuse was nothing more than a drug abuser wanting to sweet talk himself into a free pass for narcotics. Paul shouldn't feel too bad about the trash talk Elvis did about The Beatles, he probably didn't really mean it, he was just using them.
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