ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT ?

It is a Live Concert with screaming, hysterical fans.
Elvis gives a jerk to his pelvis and begins to sing....

" Are you lonesome tonight ..... Do you miss me tonight ... Are you sorry we drifted apart ......

Does your memory stray .
........to a brighter summer day ...,,,"

and the audience goes into a hysterical frenzy... Absolutely wild... ! It is always so ! Here is an excerpt:

"Elvis, occasionally during live performances, would randomly change lyrics. The first recorded example of this was during his famous benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial at Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on March 25, 1961. During this frenzied concert, ElvisPresley in a clearly fun mood while performing the spoken word section over constant audience screams, delivers lines . ."

But Elvis was essentially a very lonely person.

"It would be four years before he sang 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' .
But by 1956 Elvis Presley was already talking about how he sometimes felt lonely –at the age of only 21.
In an interview that has
remained unreleased until
now, the young star revealed that, despite his youth, he was feeling isolated and apart from those around him –
perhaps because of his
sudden stardom.
(http://dailymail.com.U.K.)

Elvis was not the only celebrity to be lonesome.. Up there, on that high pedestal of awesome fame, one is more or less always all alone.

Emily Dickinson was one such person. She was a poetess living in 19th century USA. Consider this poem :

"A Bird came down the Walk —

He did not know I saw—

He bit an Angleworm in halves . .And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dewd From a convenient Grass—

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around—

They looked like frightened Beads,
I thought—

He stirred his Velvet Head Like one in danger,

Cautious,I offered him a Crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home."

It is refreshingly simple, refreshingly earthy !

"Dickinson did not leave
the Homestead unless it was absolutely necessary and as early as 1867, she began to talk to visitors
from the other side of a door rather than speaking to them face to face.
she was rarely seen, and when she was, she was usually clothed in white.
Few of the locals who exchanged messages with Dickinson during her
last fifteen years ever saw her in person. Austin and his family began to protect Emily's privacy, deciding that she was not to be a
subject of discussion with outsiders." (wikipedia)

To the sages loneliness has been one big opportunity to decalcify their PenealGland (google search for more on this) , to celebrities it is an obvious shelter from an intruding world...

Another person who shunned people was the greatest cricketer ever - Don Bradman. He was a loner even in his cricketing circle. And he firmly shut his windows to the outside world.Here is a report of what happened when he once landed in 1953 in calcutta (now called kolkata) on his way to England :

'Though retired, Bradman was still as popular as ever. No sooner did a "visibly reluctant"Bradman enter the Dum Dum airport waiting room than a horde of people thronged for his glimpse. A livid Bradman ordered the authorities to guard his privacy. But since it wasn't possible to control the increasing crowd, he was taken to a quiet, safer place in an army vehicle. He later pulled up the airline for what he considered a "breach of confidentiality".'
- Rediff NewsApp

Another legend....Lee Harper,the author of one of the greatest novels of all times - To Kill a Mocking Bird - shuns publicity and has been withdrawn from public all her life.

"Lee abhors the
limelight. She stopped talking to the press a few years after her novel was
published and turns down most requests for appearances"
-Los Angeles Times

Now aged 87 years, she has lived a lonely life for over fifty years.

They are all lonely .They often have health problems too. And, inspite of awesome success, are generally devoid of peace of mind. Perhaps their mental makeup can be summed up in PBShelley's famous lines :

"Alas! I have nor hope nor
health,

Nor peace within nor calm
around,

Nor that content surpassing wealth

The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned. . . .

"To a skylark"

             ***********