Rate the Song: Elvis Ate America

[digitize]

Today is time for the second half of Passengers: Original Soundtracks 1.

Please rate Elvis Ate America on a scale from 0 to 10, using whatever criteria you feel allows you to best evaluate the song as a whole. I will not set criteria for people to based on, but if you feel like your best evaluation of the merits of a song comes from voting only based on, say, the studio version, go right ahead and vote that way. Full information on the Rate The Song series may be found in this thread.

Have fun! This poll will close in 96 hours.

 

[nielsgov]

Pretty mediocre but it's funny so I'll give it a 5.

 

[mikal]

probably the worst song on Passengers. it really does not fit the atmosphere on the album.

 

[trevgreg]

Can't say I ever really liked this song. But for some reason, I can still hear Bono singing Elvis' name after all this time!

 

[flybabe]

This one just kind of goes off in it's own direction. The humor in the song makes it somewhat tolerable. 5.

 

[theedgeu2]

This only gets a 1 because the big ELLLL-VIS never, ever fails to make me laugh. Other than that all this song is is a terrible white man's version of rap music.

 

[An Cat Gav]

Not as as shit as some people on here (who i respect!) seem to think it is. Not great either though but not the worst thing U2 have done, though I do think it's the worst song on this mighty album.
5

 

[prbiker15]

Humorous. ELVIS! But just a filler, I think they were starting to run out of ideas here. One of the worst on Passengers. 3.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

10. For the lulz.

 

[Aardvark747]

quite funny, but poor. 6

 

[The Panther]

I don't think I've ever heard this song, but I did read about it. Craig Werner's book A Change Is Gonna Come has a chapter about the contested legacy of Elvis in American culture, and he writes quite a bit (of nonsense) about "Elvis Presley and America" and "Elvis Ate America".

(Werner is an academic in the US -- I'm more familiar with his later book, Higher Ground, another noble failure. His attempts to link the lives of musicians into the grand narrative of black/white social relations in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s doesn't really come off. His writing style is rather jarring as well -- it's as if, in order to make his rather desperate academic points, he needs to jump around from topic to topic via the loosest of leading sentences. You just get confused trying to figure out what kind of point he's leading to. And usually, there isn't one. It is nice, however, that he gave the much overlooked Curtis Mayfield some serious attention.)