Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives

by Greil Marcus

In June of 1992, when all the polls showed that Bill Clinton didn't have a chance, he took his saxophone onto the Arsenio Hall show, put on dark glasses, and blew "Heartbreak Hotel." Greil Marcus, one of America's most imaginative and insightful popular culture critics, was the first to name this as the moment that turned Clinton's campaign around―and to make sense of why. Double Trouble draws on articles Marcus published from 1992 to 2000 to explore the remarkable and illuminating kinship between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley―and, moreover, to explore how culture is made and shared in today's America and how, through culture, people remake themselves.

Double Trouble is a unique and essential book about the final years of the twentieth century. This edition also includes a new essay Marcus wrote just before the 2000 presidential an eerily prescient piece that looks forward to two very different futures for ex-President Bill Clinton.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Criticism

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. In recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, Minnesota, NYU, and the New School in New York. He lives in Oakland, California.

Reviews

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought Greil Marcus was generally regarded as one the more respected rock n' roll critics (if such a depiction is possible) along with other Rolling Stone veterans like Ben Fong-Torres, Kurt Loder, Cameron Crowe and, hell, even Jan Wenner. Once upon a time we had vibrant music that shoook the foundations of society, that inspired the masses, that boldly skirted The Edge and lifted our collective consciousness. The good writers seemed to sense this and tried to weave their commentaries on music into semi-intelligent discourses on culture, politics and life. Marcus has a prodigious output of books and articles, nearly all of which I had never read. Mystery Train has a good rep but lies untouched in the upper reaches of my archives. But Double Trouble popped up in hard back, brand new for $2 at a clearance sale. After reading it, I understand why. This ridiculous attempt to establish a cosmic connection between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley gets tired after the first twenty pages. There are some other commentaries and profiles that might grab your attention but you could get more enrichment reading back issues of TIME magazine.

[Timothy Swartout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greil Marcus remains one of my preferred cultural commentators/ critics and in this collection of essays from various publications originally published during Bill Clinton’s terms as president, he maintains that there was a deep connection between Clinton and Elvis Presley in how they were perceived. I do not recall this connection being played up during the nineties, but the documentation is here in this book. Most of the collected and edited articles reference this connection, but a few do not. Marcus often tends to start on one subject and then go off to completely different ones during the same article, but each one is never less than eloquent and thought-provoking.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't read this since the hardcover was brand new, which means I hadn't read it since Clinton was president, which meant yikes, the last piece, added to the paperback, in which Marcus imagines two different outcomes to the 2000 election and the ensuing presidencies, was a hell of a downer.

It also meant that this turned out to be a crazy trip down memory lane, particularly as the book moved toward the impeachment years. In much the way visiting the Clinton Library allowed for the strange experience of seeing my lifetime packaged as history, this book was a constant flashback to my adolescence. It's not a period I'm ever particularly eager to relive, but I suppose it's useful to be reminded of the series of events that poisoned me against the Republican Party, and to see how little their tactics have changed.

Along the way, the cameos from the non-Clintons and non-Presleys, particularly Kurt Cobain and Bob Dylan, are a real treat.

[Michiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again, a difficult book to rate, for it's subject is a bit dated by now, and it's a collection of columns/reviews, not a book crafted to work as a whole. But Greil Marcus' main strength is the fact that he likes to work a big canvas, but at the same time is capable of finding details that illustrate his original views on culture (for instance his column about Carl Perkins' 'Blue Suede Shoes'.)
If anything, the book is more about Clinton than it is about Elvis, and though the back-cover states The Band as another subject frequently popping up, I haven't found a single item on them. Fortunately, multiple columns on Nirvana make up for this 'omission', for it is nigh impossible to write any observation on American Culture in the '90's without them.
I like Marcus' style of writing and thinking, so I do not mind the book being a bit uneven, but it probably is a minor work is his oeuvre.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Currently re-reading. At its best, this collection traces mysterious, hidden histories in sharp new ways. It floats gimmicky hypothoses and half-truths into flickering histories. Transient pop moments gain mythical importance, but never the ones you think, and rarely in a numbing Rolling Stone/Hall of Fame way.

Marcus helps me agree with my own belief that the tawdry entertainments of our time (music, TV, film, the internet, games of various descriptions) are also the height of human endeavour.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Clinton piece is astonishing.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only great art in America is its music. And I don't necessarily consider music to be art. It doesn't have to be.