It’s now or never,
Come hold me tight
Kiss me my darling,
Be mine tonight
Tomorrow will be too late,
It’s now or never
My love won’t wait.
Why is tomorrow too late? Why does it have to be now?
The woman might be willing but why the insistence on “now”?
Maybe he’s shipping out to a war zone tomorrow. Or maybe just moving to some other state for a job. Sometimes it’s the last chance to do something, that’s not skeevy.
From the song he says “For who knows when we’ll meet again this way”. So maybe it’s a two-ships-passing-in-the-night situation.
I’d go with the stereotypical stand-by: He’s desperate to get laid, so he’s offering an ultimatum in the hopes that the woman will recognize his undeniable wonderfulness, come to her senses, and just get on with the screwing! 
Haha, I bet that works out really well for him!
It probably did, for Elvis.
It could be that he’s saying, “I’m horny right now, and if you won’t do something about it, I’m done with you,” which, yeah, is pretty skeevy.
But I agree the line For who knows when we’ll meet again this way suggests there are circumstances beyond their control that will keep them apart come tomorrow.
Or he’s just saying that to get her to give in.
Their situation is not explicitly spelled out in the lyrics, so I suppose it’s a bit of a Rorschach. The tragic doomed romance angle makes for a better song, so I’m going with that.
Maybe there’s only so much time before the Viagra wears off.
Lots and lots of love songs, and poetry for that matter, have the theme of "Let’s screw like bunnies right this very moment, without waiting for anything or thinking about the future at all. Compare “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”, and “Had we but world enough and time”, or “What is love? Not hereafter”.
Maybe he is telling her he going after her sister or best friend tomorrow because they are easy and next on his list. Or he is going to prison and his preferences are going to do a 180 turn.
There’s no indication that he’s off to war, to prison or to a new job, and even if there was, it is manipulative to insist on something now. The world won’t end if they defer having sex. Also, if there was a benign explanation, why doesn’t she just agree and enjoy it? Why the ultimatum?
Seems to me to be the simplest explanation. The year was 1960. Many men interpreted “No” as “Keep trying”. It was part of the “games people play”. The ultimatum was part of the game.
There’s no indication of any reason so why do you go to something skeevy? It’s not an ultimatum if time is actually of the essence, which is the most common reason people say something like that. If it was an ultimatum it would be something like “Either we do this now or it’s over between us.”
That’s true, but it’s also true that many popular lyrics simply reflect the human condition and the culture of the times, and what many lyrics of that era reflected were the urges of hormone-crazed male teenagers. Older male here, but I can imagine that one natural reaction of a young girl (or any woman, really) in that circumstance would be to get the hell out of there. And if aforementioned hormone-crazed male had a problem with that, in the woman’s situation I’d provide a nice punch in the face, or failing that, a good swift kick in the balls.
Eggs-actly. And this is part of the reason we have the #MeToo movement, with both its good and its bad (extreme) aspects. It’s essentially because there are so many hormone-crazed assholes around with zero ethics, reason, or rationality.
If you think Presley’s version is skeevy, you would definitely have problems with the original Italian lyrics.
The Uber just showed up. So you comin’ or ain’t ya?
First they came for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, and I said nothing.
Then…
I wouldn’t make too much of “it’s now or never”. You can read into it what you want; maybe “be mine tonight” just means that he wants a commitment of her love in an ethereal sense (yeah, right).
Anyway, it’s not like’s he’s threatening her with anything more than the potential loss of his wonderful self.
*always thought the Elvis version was a drippy song.
Because I’m busy all day tomorrow.
To me, clearly he’s horny as all get-out and he wants her right now.
Another song, Midnight Rendezvous by The Babys, here are some purposefully-selected excerpts from those lyrics —
Driving faster than you want me to
Can’t help myself when I’m alone with you
Cause baby can’t you see
We need to spend some time alone
We need to see some dreams come true
I want to feel me touching you
We need a midnight rendezvous
(and at the very end…)
All I really want to do
Oh I really want to fuck you
.
There’s nothing subtle about that.
To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s not skeevy. I’m saying that skeeviness of this sort has been around for a very long time, and that it’s probably inherent to humanity (or at least, to the subset of humanity that writes “love” poetry).
We should probably try to work against this part of our nature. But it’s going to be very difficult.
Boston gives us this gem:
You, you and I girl
We can share a life together
It’s now or never
And tomorrow may be too late
Well, which is it young fella? If it’s now or never, what do you mean “may”?