I got a portable radio that I put under my pillow at night and played quietly: listening to the Platters sing “Only You” and “The Great Pretender” (with its alternating high A flats and B flats at the start of the reprise, which was way out of my capabilities) or the Five Satins singing “In the Still of the Night” or even Johnnie & Joe singing the wonderful “Over the Mountain, Across the Sea” was a spectacular antidote to Perry Como’s eight-note range that my parents were riveted to on the television. Somehow, the wider range, both vocal and emotional— they sang high, they sang low; they whispered, they wailed— made their music more personal, more full of feeling, more exciting than Perry Como’s, Vic Damone’s, Eddie Fisher’s,or Andy Williams’s. One might think it was a black-versus white thing at the time— what with black singers being far more exotic and therefore more interesting. Elvis Presley had, at the time, nothing to do with singing; he had to do with rebellion, making people’s parents unhappy, and..... being Elvis.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I got a portable radio that I put under my pillow at night and played quietly: listening to the Platters sing “Only You” and “The Great Pretender” (with its alternating high A flats and B flats at the start of the reprise, which was way out of my capabilities) or the Five Satins singing “In the Still of the Night” or even Johnnie & Joe singing the wonderful “Over the Mountain, Across the Sea” was a spectacular antidote to Perry Como’s eight-note range that my parents were riveted to on the television. Somehow, the wider range, both vocal and emotional— they sang high, they sang low; they whispered, they wailed— made their music more personal, more full of feeling, more exciting than Perry Como’s, Vic Damone’s, Eddie Fisher’s,or Andy Williams’s. One might think it was a black-versus white thing at the time— what with black singers being far more exotic and therefore more interesting. Elvis Presley had, at the time, nothing to do with singing; he had to do with rebellion, making people’s parents unhappy, and..... being Elvis." in the context of "Robert Levine, in the author's notes inckuded in his book "Weep, Shudder, Die: A Guide to Loving Opera"" to mean that wisdom is timeless.