‘Personal Jesus’: How Elvis Presley’s problematic ways inspired Depeche Mode’s masterpiece
Posted: October 20th, 2025, 9:19 pm
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/elvis-pres ... st-anthem/
Tom Taylor
@tomtaylorfo
Mon 20 October 2025 19:29, UK
If you’ve made art after 1954, then the chances are you’ve been influenced by Elvis Presley.
You might not know that the bequiffed singer is in the welter of your work, but the man they call The King changed pop culture to such an extent that there’s all the stuff before Elvis and all the stuff after.
You can argue all you like about how that might be arbitrary and that the engine of the arts in the postmodern age was awaiting a driver anyway, but the fact of the matter is, this slicked-back hip-swiveller was the idol who got behind the wheel of a revolution in-waiting when he released the rip-rousing rock ‘n’ roll epic, ‘Hound Dog’.
In this sense, it’s easy to see how the world was subsumed by his awe-inspiring aura. Priscilla Presley was no different. The issue was, she was merely 14 when she met her future husband. Elvis was serving in the army in Germany at the time, and they would only see each other fleetingly after theuir first meeting until he returned three years later, in 1962. Nevertheless, the age gap remains beyond nettlesome.
As do the recollections of his fellow servicemen, like his friend Rex Mansfield, who alleges that he Elvis told him, “[Prescilla is] young enough that I can train her any way I want.”
Thus, it is perhaps no surprise that when they did begin a relationship, Priscilla remained in awe of her partner. There was a ten-year age gap, and he was the King who changed the world as much as any monarch with a literal crown before him. Even when her parent’s became bothered by her initial visits, she exemplified the sway that he held over her, when she recalled, “I basically threatened them and told them, ‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll find my way.’”
However, his rule over the wider world would wane, and retrospective eyes would be cast over him and his troublesome relationship. This is what caught the eye of Depeche Mode and spawned their opus, ‘Personal Jesus’.
When Martin Gore, the British band’s chief songwriter and guitarist, was leafing through Priscilla’s book, Elvis and Me, he put his finger on an issue that stretched beyond their relationship or any other problematic element. One startling factor leapt out from the page with more universality: turning an object of desire into an idol of pure devotion and dependence. With this in mind, he wrote the classic that initially peaked at 13th in the charts upon release in 1989, but has since come to define the dark synth genre.
As he explained: “It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships – how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?”
Rather sickeningly, the inverse was equally true. Prescilla was an idol to Elvis in the most perfunctory sense. As she told the Hollywood Reporter, “ Elvis’ living doll, to fashion as he pleased.” She was in this regard, a devoted follower, and an object to be moulded – to reiterate Gore’s point, “that’s not a very balanced view”.
With that in mind, Gore penned lyrics that Johnny Cash rightly identified as having a gospel overture to create an anthem that mixed eulogised longing with a darkly brooding melody to a religious degree.
While the lyrics are left obfuscated enough for personal corroborations to come into it, the verse, “Feeling unknown / And you’re all alone / Flesh and bone / By the telephone / Lift up the receiver / I’ll make you a believer,” documents the years when Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship was purely over the phone as she grew older and become enamoured with this demigod offering comfort and charm from overseas while he was stationed in Germany where they first met.
This is put forth uncompromisingly by the band who faced the wrath of those who thought tackling a deity while leather-clad was too daring. While it was presented without cynicism, it was met with backlash over claims of blasphemy. But the song has survived.
It whisks together disparate elements to form a masterpiece that showed how synths and technology could be used to create exalted atmospheres without overruling the songwriting as the master of the mix. The lyrics are almost Dylanesque, the sonics remain the sound of the future. In some ways, it was the 1980s second phase of the postmodernist mix of art and technology that Elvis heralded in the first place when he quite literally electrified the blues. And what’s more, Dave Gahan’s vocal take even has somewhat of greased-ip ‘In The Ghetto’ grumble about it. Perhaps the biggest irony of all, thst sutures the whole story of the song, is that the sordid ‘King’ would’ve no doubt done a cracking cover of ‘Personal Jesus’ himself because it was, in part, written in his image.
Tom Taylor
@tomtaylorfo
Mon 20 October 2025 19:29, UK
If you’ve made art after 1954, then the chances are you’ve been influenced by Elvis Presley.
You might not know that the bequiffed singer is in the welter of your work, but the man they call The King changed pop culture to such an extent that there’s all the stuff before Elvis and all the stuff after.
You can argue all you like about how that might be arbitrary and that the engine of the arts in the postmodern age was awaiting a driver anyway, but the fact of the matter is, this slicked-back hip-swiveller was the idol who got behind the wheel of a revolution in-waiting when he released the rip-rousing rock ‘n’ roll epic, ‘Hound Dog’.
In this sense, it’s easy to see how the world was subsumed by his awe-inspiring aura. Priscilla Presley was no different. The issue was, she was merely 14 when she met her future husband. Elvis was serving in the army in Germany at the time, and they would only see each other fleetingly after theuir first meeting until he returned three years later, in 1962. Nevertheless, the age gap remains beyond nettlesome.
As do the recollections of his fellow servicemen, like his friend Rex Mansfield, who alleges that he Elvis told him, “[Prescilla is] young enough that I can train her any way I want.”
Thus, it is perhaps no surprise that when they did begin a relationship, Priscilla remained in awe of her partner. There was a ten-year age gap, and he was the King who changed the world as much as any monarch with a literal crown before him. Even when her parent’s became bothered by her initial visits, she exemplified the sway that he held over her, when she recalled, “I basically threatened them and told them, ‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll find my way.’”
However, his rule over the wider world would wane, and retrospective eyes would be cast over him and his troublesome relationship. This is what caught the eye of Depeche Mode and spawned their opus, ‘Personal Jesus’.
When Martin Gore, the British band’s chief songwriter and guitarist, was leafing through Priscilla’s book, Elvis and Me, he put his finger on an issue that stretched beyond their relationship or any other problematic element. One startling factor leapt out from the page with more universality: turning an object of desire into an idol of pure devotion and dependence. With this in mind, he wrote the classic that initially peaked at 13th in the charts upon release in 1989, but has since come to define the dark synth genre.
As he explained: “It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships – how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?”
Rather sickeningly, the inverse was equally true. Prescilla was an idol to Elvis in the most perfunctory sense. As she told the Hollywood Reporter, “ Elvis’ living doll, to fashion as he pleased.” She was in this regard, a devoted follower, and an object to be moulded – to reiterate Gore’s point, “that’s not a very balanced view”.
With that in mind, Gore penned lyrics that Johnny Cash rightly identified as having a gospel overture to create an anthem that mixed eulogised longing with a darkly brooding melody to a religious degree.
While the lyrics are left obfuscated enough for personal corroborations to come into it, the verse, “Feeling unknown / And you’re all alone / Flesh and bone / By the telephone / Lift up the receiver / I’ll make you a believer,” documents the years when Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship was purely over the phone as she grew older and become enamoured with this demigod offering comfort and charm from overseas while he was stationed in Germany where they first met.
This is put forth uncompromisingly by the band who faced the wrath of those who thought tackling a deity while leather-clad was too daring. While it was presented without cynicism, it was met with backlash over claims of blasphemy. But the song has survived.
It whisks together disparate elements to form a masterpiece that showed how synths and technology could be used to create exalted atmospheres without overruling the songwriting as the master of the mix. The lyrics are almost Dylanesque, the sonics remain the sound of the future. In some ways, it was the 1980s second phase of the postmodernist mix of art and technology that Elvis heralded in the first place when he quite literally electrified the blues. And what’s more, Dave Gahan’s vocal take even has somewhat of greased-ip ‘In The Ghetto’ grumble about it. Perhaps the biggest irony of all, thst sutures the whole story of the song, is that the sordid ‘King’ would’ve no doubt done a cracking cover of ‘Personal Jesus’ himself because it was, in part, written in his image.