If only the King had abdicated with King Creole!

And then he went into his bathroom and died of drug-related cardiac arrest.Imagine if Elvis Aron Presley hadn’t toppled off that toilet seat 20 years ago, on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42. Imagine, instead, that he’d died, say, 15 years before.

He’d still be, if not the king of rock ‘n’ roll, at least somewhere near the throne. Undoubtedly, he’d be leading a pantheon of such rock heroes as Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, who all died at the peak of their powers. And the world likely wouldn’t be laughing quite so hard at him now.

If Elvis had left the building in August 1962, he would have taken his young, handsome and relatively clean and sober body with him. In exchange, he would have left behind blueSuede Shoes, That’s all right (mamma), All shook up, I want you, I need you, I love you, and Love me tender.”

He would have also left behind a few priceless, grainy film clips of legendary concert performances, in which a young man in a doofus-looking tan suit and two-toned shoes suddenly transforms himself into a teen idol by simply pouring his very soul into the music.

He would have even left behind a couple of decent movies, like JailhouseRock and King Creole.

Now, ponder what he would not have left behind: Embarrassing TV reruns of truly hideous movies like Clambake, Kissin Cousins and Change of habit that require far too many people to explain to their children why they once paid good money to see these things in theaters.

Remembrances of a grotesquely overweight 40-year-old man, his hair a badly dyed shade of black, cramming himself into a ridiculous-looking sequined suit and huffing and puffing his way through Hound dog for a bunch of Las Vegas gamblers on a break from the craps tables.

Nightmarish visions of a baronial Elvis awakening in Graceland in the middle of the night, ordering his plane readied for a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich run to some far-flung place and, while waiting to leave, making himself a snack by carving a hole in the center of a huge loaf of bread, stuffing it full of fried bacon and then wolfing it down like a starving dog.

Not a pretty sight, although arguably a pretty funny one.And, come to think of it, perhaps that’s what makes Elvis Presley the king after all.

Perhaps he simply represents the best and the worst sides of America. And in doing so, he also represents the best and the worst of his art, a truly American form of music that, like the country itself, can veer wildly from euphoric, self-confident and rebellious one moment to insecure and cautious the next — all the while teetering on the brink of being sleazy, cheesy and pompous.