Launceston, Tasmania, 1997

When I was eight, my grandfather gave me a Sony cassette Walkman.  To accompany this new whizzbang gadget, I descended on Chickenfeed and purchased a cassette titled Rockbusters for a cool two bucks.  Despite the uncomfortable headphones chafing my eight-year-old ears, I listened to that cassette for days; promptly wearing out the Rockbusters masterpiece with the sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis.  Days later my grandfather handed me a double-cassette of Elvis Presley.  My world changed.

I immediately fell in love with The King’s greatest hits.  If I wasn’t listening to the cassettes via my Walkman, then I was insisting we play them in the car.  I didn’t know much about Elvis at this point.  I hadn’t seen any of his iconic moves until a kid impersonated him during a segment of Red Faces on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  I figured if that kid could do it, then so could I.

Hound Dog was my choice.  It was the song I was most drawn to.  I loved its rocking rhythm, the frenetic energy and the way Elvis delivered the lyrics.  It seemed gutsier than other music I had been exposed to at that point – after all, I had not long graduated from The Wiggles. I figured the song was about a dog trying to catch a rabbit, though adult-me now concedes there could be a double entendre or two happening.

Whenever my school teacher would leave the room, I would inevitably jump on a table and give my best Elvis impersonation to the class.  I would swing my arms and shake my legs, and send the class into rapturous laughter.  It was a refreshing change from Mr Bean impersonations.  I would end each mini-performance with a customary “thank you very much” in my very best Elvis voice.  Granted, these performances would usually come to an abrupt end courtesy of Mrs Tyson returning early to class, or a misplaced Elvis leg-shake sending me flying off the table.

It wasn’t unusual for me to deliver a line specifically to the class bully:

You ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine

Any encores were typically prevented by a classroom fight.

When I started drum lessons, all I wanted to play was Hound Dog.  A little while later I would start a band with my school friend on guitar.  The band didn’t last very long.  While I insisted on playing the likes of Hound Dog, my friend insisted on playing the Top 40 of the time – most notably Mmm Bop by Hanson.  I wasn’t compromising.

In fact, my love for Elvis was entirely out of place among my peers.  While they sang various hits by Hanson or the Spice Girls in the playground each day, I would come home to discover vinyl.  The Elvis vinyl records that I found sounded even better than my cassettes.  This only further solidified my love for rock’n roll.

In many ways, Hound Dog exemplifies the spirit of rock’n roll and the music revolution which took place in the 1950s.  At the time of my discovery, I had no idea it had been recorded more than 250 times.  I also had no idea it wasn’t originally written or recorded by Elvis.  It didn’t matter to me.  Hound Dog was my stepping stone into the world of rock’n’roll, playing the drums and the spark that ignited my passion for music itself.

Stereo Stories #648

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Rowan MacDonald lives in Tasmania with his dog, Rosie. He previously wrote for Stereo Stories about his love for The Beach Boys and Elvis. His writing has appeared in a variety of publications around the world, including most recently The Ocotillo Review, Black Fork Review and Defunct Magazine.