Elvis Outside the U.S.A.: A Dark Shadow in the Early Italian Cultural Cold War

Examining the Italian case, this chapter moves from two separate perspectives: one inspired by the psychological interpretation of Elvis’ impact as a sort of White archetype of the blues on European societies, and another one anchored to the current debate among historians about music and international relations during the Cold War. I will use these two separate categories to investigate the impact of Elvis’ rock‘n’roll music on the Italian landscape just after World War II, when—with the Eisenhower’s People to People Program—blues, jazz, soul and rock’n’roll were used by the US Department of State as “sonic weapons” to combat the perception of the US as a racist society. In fact, paradoxically, a more authentic representation of Elvis as the “dark side” of the American way of life arrived in its raw version through the military model launched by the soldiers in charge at the NATO command center for the defense of France, Greece, Italy and Turkey: the Headquarters of AFSOUTH (Allied Forces Southern Europe). Overcoming filters and censorship of the local political and cultural institutions through the military model, Elvis embodied the explosion of rock‘n’roll, which was considered a real threat by Italian political parties (Catholic, Socialist and Communist). In the political contest of the Cold War, the threat for the main, traditional political parties was the laicization or secularization of local youth.