Did the “King” ever write one of his own songs?
Thanks
Quasi
Elvis shared songwriting credit on a few tunes, like “All SHook Up” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” but it’s generally believed that he had nothing to do with writing them.
Remember that Elvis was in a very powerful position, as the most popular singer in rock and roll. If a young, unknown songwriter like Otis Blackwell (the REAL composer of the two songs I mentioned earlier) wanted Elvis to record one of his songs, Colonel Tom Parker could lean on that songwriter to share songwriting credit with Elvis. That meant, of course, that Elvis collected a share of the songwriting royalties.
MANY early rock songwriters were forced to share credit with all kinds of powerful people who were in a position to help them out. For example, deejay Allen Freed demanded co-writing credit for “Maybelline” in exchange for playing Chuck Berry’s music on the radio. In reality, of course, Freed didn’t have anything to do with writing “Maybelline.” But Berry was desperate for radio airplay, so he gave Freed partial credit, and Freed earned a fortune in royalties as a result.
Elvis got songwriting credit for Love Me Tender, but he had nothing to do with writing that song or any of the others that he sang.
Elvis didn’t get songwriting credit as much as he got the publishing rights. Col, Parker wouldn’t let Elvis record a song unless the songwriter signed the publishing rights over to one of two publishing companies that the Col had set up. This sytem eventually backfired as many good songwriters refused to do this and Elvis was reduced to singing suchclassics as “Do The Clam,” and “Old MacDonald Had A Farm.”
Some trivia - “Love Me Tender” has writting credits for Elvis Presley and Ken Darby [billed as Vera Matson] but actually it is an adaptation of the Civil War melody “Aura Lee”.
Elvis shared a writer’s credit for “Heartbreak Hotel”, his 1st single recorded after Sun sold him to RCA. When asked about it by a reporter, Elvis said “I never wrote a song in my life”. And that’s what he always said when asked. The Colonal just got him some writer’s credits to get both of them some money honey (the colonal took 50% of everything Elvis earned). But Elvis was always honest about it.
Does this mean that Allen Freed and Elvis pretended that they wrote the songs
“We pretend to write the songs that make the whole woooorld siiiiing…”
Nice find.
He never really made an effort at songwriting but was a genius at composition and production (according to many including Phil Spector). Getting Elvis to sing one of your songs almost guaranteed a hit. Even the complete crap he sung for the movies (with one or two exceptions) did ok.
Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller loved working with Elvis and never reported any issues on credit.
ISTR Dolly Parton saying that one of the best decisions she ever made was telling Elvis (and/or Colonel Parker) “no” when Elvis wanted to record “I Will Always Love You” and wanted the songwriting credit.
Eh, he just stole the idea of writing songs from black artists.
Yea because all his songs were written by blacks. Oh right, they weren’t. Also he didn’t steal anything from anyone. A basic effort would point that out to you.
Apparently Parker demanded 50% of the royalties. He could because Elvis made everyone money. Fair play to her for saying no.
It’s called a joke son.
When asked why he granted his wife with songwriting credits Darby replied, “because she didn’t have anything to do with the writing either”.
Whoosh! Apologies, totally missed it.
Curious about that as he made a fortune with the song. Cite?
I’m MORE curious why a 10 year old zombie was animated.
Didn’t even notice, doh!
I saw it on a TV special about Elvis. IIRC they had a clip of him saying it.