“Elvis is Dead” by Living Colour

"Elvis Is Dead" was the third single from Time's Up, Living Colour's second studio album, from 1990, and Vernon Reid wrote it top to bottom to take on the conspiracy theories insisting Elvis Presley had outlived his 1977 death. It also picks at Presley's tangled relationship with African-Americans, and it rewires lines from two other songs to do it: the hopeful refrain of Paul Simon's "Graceland" gets flipped into its opposite, and a put-down of Elvis from Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" gets turned into a shrug.

The guest list is a statement in itself. Little Richard drops in with a guest rap, Maceo Parker blows saxophone, and a crowd of voices keeps chanting the title before, during and after Richard's turn. It's funk metal with a history lesson built in.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.