The success of 25-year-old Stefani Germanotta, a.k.a. Lady Gaga, is really the fault of Elvis Presley, who would completely understand the woman’s immense drawing power.

Back in the mid-1950s, the United States was largely a conformist nation. Americans had endured the strict discipline of a vicious World War, and those who had served in the military were strongly committed to obeying the power structure and playing by society’s rules. Largely because of that, there was a sameness to American life in the ’50s that bored some younger Americans. And so, like James Dean, millions of teenagers became rebels without a cause.