Heartbreak Hotel / I Was The One

A-side recorded at RCA Victor Studios, Nashville on January 10, 1956
B-side recorded at RCA Victor Studios, Nashville on January 11, 1956
Heartbreak Hotel - The tune was Written by Tommy Durden & Mae Boren Axton, “Heartbreak Hotel” was Elvis’ first release on his new record label RCA Victor after appearing on Sun Records. The song gave Elvis his first No.1 pop record, topping Billboard’s Top 100 chart, and became his first million-seller and was the best-selling single of 1956.
Durden and Axton got the idea for the song after reading a newspaper story about a man who had cut the labels off his clothing and destroyed all documents that could identify him, then left a one-line suicide note. Axton stated that everyone has someone who cares, and when those who love him learn of his death, they’ll be broken-hearted, so she came up the idea of putting a “Heartbreak Hotel” at the end of that lonely street.
A few months after the song was completed, Mae Axton attended a disc jockey convention in Nashville with “Heartbreak Hotel” on her tape player. She bumped into Elvis and Bob Neal (Presley’s manager at the time) in the lobby of a hotel. She invited the pair up to her room to hear her new song. Elvis loved the dark, brooding song and immediately made plans to record it.