Musical Service Honors Lisa Marie Presley

In a poem, daughter wrote of her mother as 'The Old Soul'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 22, 2023 5:05 PM CST
Lisa Marie Presley Honored in Song, Poem
Mourners visit the gravesite of Lisa Marie Presley and her son Benjamin Keough at Graceland on Sunday.   (AP Photo/John Amis)

Lisa Marie Presley, a singer, songwriter, and the daughter of Elvis Presley, was remembered during a funeral service Sunday as a loving mother and an "old soul" who endured tragedy but persevered as a dedicated protector of her father's legacy as a rock 'n' roll pioneer and pop icon. More than a thousand people gathered on the front lawn of Graceland on a gray, chilly Memphis morning to mourn and remember Lisa Marie Presley, 54, who died Jan. 12 in California, the AP reports. Some mourners held flowers as they waited for the service to begin under the tall trees on the lawn of Graceland, the home in Memphis where Lisa Marie lived as a child with her father.

Among those who spoke were Lisa Marie's mother, Priscilla Presley; Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York; Jerry Schilling, a close friend of Lisa Marie's father; and former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, who called her parents Memphis' royal couple and a "conduit to the throne, the keeper of the flame." In a soft voice, Priscilla Presley read a poem from one of Lisa Marie's three daughters, Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood, entitled "The Old Soul," in which she calls her mother "an icon, a role model, a superhero to many people all over the world." Priscilla Presley read: "In 1968, she entered our world, born tired, fragile, yet strong," adding, "She always knew she wouldn't be here too long. Childhood passes by, with a glimpse of her green eye. She then grew a family of her own."

Music punctuated the service, per the AP. The service began with the singing of "Amazing Grace" by Jason Clark & the Tennessee Mass Choir. Billy Corgan, lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins, played acoustic guitar and sang "To Sheila"; Alanis Morissette sang "Rest"; Axl Rose played piano and sang "November Rain"; and the Blackwood Brothers Quartet performed two songs. After the service, mourners walked through Graceland's Meditation Garden, where she was interred in an above-ground grave next to her son Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020, and alongside her grandparents and great-grandmother. Wreaths and bouquets of red, white, yellow and pink flowers lined the walk to the gravesite and the tomb itself. Fans, some teary-eyed, walked slowly by the tomb, pausing to pay their respects.

(More Lisa Marie Presley stories.)

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