Pete Atkin sings
Apparition In Las Vegas

by Clive James and Pete Atkin,
from A King At Nightfall

[Much more at www.peteatkin.com]
LYRIC:
When the King of Rock and Roll sang in the desert
He didn't seem to age like other men
To Vegas came the ladies with pink rinses
Agog to see the dreamboat sail again

To Vegas came the shipwrecked and the broken
Their long regrets, their searing midnight rages
Their disappointment seldom left unspoken
In marriages that turned to rows of cages
He wrote and bound the book of which their
          early aspirations were the pages

When the King of Rock and Roll sang in the desert
With a ring of confidence around his smile
He sparkled like the frosting on a drumkit
He was supple as the serpent of the Nile

To Vegas came the ladies with pink rinses
With all their ills and all their soured karma
With all their pills and all their tics and winces
To feel again the liberating drama
Of a shining silver buckskin suit
          against a solid purple cyclorama

When the King of Rock and Roll sang in the desert
He broke no hearts that hadn't burst before
The ladies with pink rinses all were veterans
It was they and never he that knew the score
And knowing that they only loved him more

To Vegas came the debris of an era
For the promise that no longer could deceive them
Their eyes grew misty as their sight grew clearer
With a drum roll the past began to leave them
And it all drew further from them as the spotlight
          caught the King and brought him nearer