Heartbreak Hotel (1956)

"Heartbreak Hotel" is a song recorded by the American singer Elvis Presley. It was released as a single on January 27, 1956, Presley's first on his new record label RCA Victor. It was written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden, with credit being given also to Presley. A newspaper article about the suicide of a lonely man who jumped from a hotel window inspired the song. Axton presented the song to Presley in November 1955 at a country music convention in Nashville. Presley recorded it on January 10, 1956, in a session with his band, the Blue Moon Boys, the guitarist Chet Atkins, and the pianist Floyd Cramer. "Heartbreak Hotel" comprises an eight-bar blues progression, with heavy reverberation throughout the track, to imitate the character of Presley's Sun recordings.

The single topped the Billboard Top 100 for seven weeks, Cashbox's Pop singles chart for six weeks, and the Country and Western chart for seventeen weeks as well as reaching No. 3 on the R&B chart, becoming Presley's first million-seller, and one of the best-selling singles of 1956. "Heartbreak Hotel" achieved unheard of feats as it reached the top 5 of Country and Western, Pop, and Rhythm 'n' Blues charts simultaneously. It was eventually certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Presley had first performed "Heartbreak Hotel" during a live show in December 1955 during a tour of the Louisiana Hayride; it gained popularity after his appearance on Stage Show in March 1956. It became a staple of Presley's repertoire in live appearances, last performed by him on May 29, 1977, at the Civic Center in Baltimore.

In 1995, "Heartbreak Hotel" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". That year it was also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". A rock and roll standard, "Heartbreak Hotel" has been covered by several rock and pop acts, including Willie Nelson and Leon Russell, who recorded a duet version that topped the Country charts in 1979.

Background and writing

The song was written in 1955, by Mae Boren Axton, a high school teacher with a background in musical promotion, and Tommy Durden, a Jacksonville, Florida-based singer–songwriter. The lyrics were based on a report supposedly in The Miami Herald about a man who had destroyed all his identity papers and jumped to his death from a hotel window, leaving a suicide note with the single line, "I walk a lonely street". Songfacts.com says they were unable to locate the Miami Herald story. They labeled it an urban legend. In 2016, an article in Rolling Stone magazine suggested that the story in reality originated from a report about a painter and criminal, Alvin Krolik, whose marriage had failed and who wrote an unpublished autobiography including the line "This is the story of a person who walked a lonely street." Krolik's story was published in news media, and received further publicity after he was shot and killed in an attempted robbery in El Paso, Texas. On August 25, 1955, the El Paso Times reported Krolik's death under the headline "Story of Person Who Walked Lonely Street". Krolik's death was not a suicide, so it could not have inspired the song to Tommy Durden.