In Michael Daugherty's Dead Elvis, the King of rock & roll is personified by, of all things, a bassoon—played by an appropriately dressed and coifed Elvis impersonator—accompanied by clarinet, trumpet, trombone, one percussionist, violin, and double bass. The piece uses the same instrumentation as Stravinsky's L'histoire du soldat, and is analogous to the story of that famous work: Elvis sells his soul to record agents, Hollywood, and Las Vegas in somewhat the same way that Stravinsky's violinist sells his soul to the devil.

The main musical motive of the piece is the Dies Irae chant, which is programmatically used in reference to Elvis' death. This medieval chant for the Day of Judgment is the first motive we hear, and appears either as melody or accompaniment in every movement of the piece. Each of Dead Elvis' distinct sections starts sparsely and quietly and then builds progressively to be busy and loud; aside from this, however, the movements are musically dissimilar, ranging from the beautiful legato bassoon solos with lounge-style background music, to exciting trades of short motives from the other instruments in a rock style, to more complicated twentieth century counterpoint in other sections. Over the course of the piece, it is easy to imagine the journey of Elvis from a young man to a burned-out Vegas lounge act.

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