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Softly As I Leave You
(Monro, Matt) Spoken Performance by Elvis Presley
Softly I will leave you softlyFor my heart would break if you should wake and see me goSo I leave you softly long before you miss meLong before your arms can beg me to stayFor one more hour or one more dayAfter all the years I can't bear the tears to fall soSoftly, as I leave you thereSoftly I will leave you softlyFor my heart would break if you should wake and see me goSo I leave you softly long before you miss meLong before your arms can beg me to stayFor one more hour or one more dayAfter all the years I can't bear the tears to fall soSoftly, as I leave you there
When we first arrived at the Sanderson Centre, I noticed that a woman in the lobby was carrying a bouquet of flowers and I said to Dave, "You've really dropped the ball by not having a bouquet of your own for Priscilla." He asked if I was serious, and I kind of shrugged and said, "We're in the first row, it would be a really easy way to get her attention." So Dave ran out to find flowers (which he did at a grocery store a few blocks away) and was back in plenty of time for the show.
As for the format: A woman came out and introduced herself as a journalist of thirty years and explained that she would be interviewing Priscilla on the stage, as well as sharing video clips and posing a few (screened) audience questions if time allowed. She then introduced Priscilla Presley (the crowd went wild), and the two of them sat on wingback chairs as the journalist went through a script of questions (from their multi-country tour to promote Priscilla's new book), and Priscilla smiled and laughed at the questions (as though she hadn't been answering each of them over and over for the past couple of weeks). To be fair: although it was obviously staged and scripted, Priscilla did a good job of answering questions about her life with Elvis with warmth and wistfulness.
Having never really read up on her, I wasn't familiar with much of Priscilla's post-Elvis story (I was surprised to learn that she had dated Robert Kardashian - what a small world Hollywood can be, what with Elvis dating Linda Thompson [mother of the Jenner boys] and Kardashian defending OJ, who had been in the Naked Gun movies), but Dave said he had heard the stories and seen all the video clips before. Still, he was enthralled throughout.
We had written out a couple of questions on the provided cards in the lobby beforehand (I was cheeky enough to ask, "Can my husband [Dave in the front row] get a kiss?", because that once worked with Carol Burnett), but although that apparently didn't pass the screening process, the journalist did ask our second question (wondering if Priscilla has an opinion on the Naked Gun remake; she does not, has not seen it despite having a cameo in the film), and that did feel like having made the slightest connection.
And when the show was over and Priscilla stood and bowed, I nudged Dave to present his bouquet, which she caem forward and accepted before offering her hand for Dave to shake (during which he was able to tell her that this was a great honour), and ultimately, he was the only one there who was able to touch sthe person who had touched his childhood idol.
So ultimately: this wasn't really for me, but seeing Dave happy like that, is everything. Excellent evening overall.
(As for the song choice, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis is the name of Priscilla's new memoir: what a missed opportunity that there wasn't a stack of signed copies at the venue for the fans to buy.)
