Heartbreak Hotel

The lyrics were written by a steel guitar player from Nashville named Tommy Durden, who was once a dishwasher repairman. Durden, who died in 1999, said he was inspired by a newspaper story about a man who killed himself and left behind a note saying only, "I walk a lonely street." Another Nashville songwriter named Mae Boren Axton wrote the music, and Elvis' manager Tom Parker arranged for Elvis to receive a songwriting credit in exchange for singing it. This meant that royalties were split between Durden, Axton, and Elvis. In a 1982 interview, Durden said this song "has paid the rent for more than 20 years."

Mae Axton was living in Jacksonville when this song was written. She got a local country singer named Glenn Reeves to do the demo for Elvis, who did the demo the way he thought Elvis would do it. Elvis liked it, and did it exactly that way. By the way, the country singer didn't care for Elvis and thought that "the boy wouldn't go far."

The book Untold Gold: The Story Behind Elvis' Number One Hits claims the song was inspired by a 1955 Miami Herald story about a man who leapt from a hotel window after burning all evidence of his identity. His suicide letter had a single line: "I walk a lonely road." Intrigued, we searched for said article at the Miami Dade library, hoping to unearth this song story. After a great deal of searching and many conversations with library historians, we concluded that this article did not exist, and that the story was an urban legend. In 2016, Rolling Stone reported that the famous line, "I walk a lonely street," came not from a suicide note, but more likely the writings of a man who was killed while robbing a liquor store. This man, Alvin Krolik, made news when he turned himself in to police in 1953 following a crime spree. A passage from his unpublished memoir was mentioned in some stories: This is the story of a person who walked a lonely street. I hope this will help someone in the future. In 1955, he tried to rob a liquor store in El Paso, Texas and was shot and killed by the owner. This story also made news, with some papers running headlines with variations on the "Walked a Lonely Street" line: the El Paso Herald-Post went with "Story of Person Who Walked Lonely Street." None of these stories appeared in the Miami Herald, but it's likely that the songwriters came across it in some publication.