Are You Lonesome Tonight?

One of the more woebegone songs ever written, "Are You Lonesome Tonight" finds Elvis asking his ex if she's alone and miserable, thinking about the good times they had and waiting for his return. We never get her side of the story, but can surmise that he's the one left cold and lonely.

This song was written in 1926 by the Tin Pan Alley songwriters Roy Turk and Lou Handman. It was a hit in 1927 for a number of artists, including Vaughan Deleath (a female despite the name), Henry Burr, and Gene Austin. In 1950 it was revived by Al Jolson, and by the bandleader Blue Barron with his vocalist Bobby Beers. Jaye P. Morgan (also a female singer) had a minor hit with the song in 1959, reaching #65. Her version is likely the one Elvis was most familiar with. Elvis recorded it when his manager, Colonel Parker, asked him to try the song because it was a favorite of Parker's wife, Marie. It was a huge hit, spending six weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 between November 1960 and January 1961. Turk and Handman would have earned enormous royalties, but they were both dead by the time Elvis recorded the song.

Most of Elvis' version is a spoken section where he describes the relationship in terms of a play, with the couple falling in love in Act 1. In Act 2, something goes wrong and her love for him dries up. He's left on the empty stage, wondering when the curtain will fall. The spoken section isn't in every version of the song, but Blue Barron and Al Jolson included variations of it in theirs.