The story behind the song
Love Me Tender’s melody came from Aura Lee (also written as Aura Lea), which is a sentimental folk ballad that came out in 1861. George R. Poulton wrote the original music while W.W. Fosdick wrote the words, and the song became really popular with military cadets and soldiers during the Civil War time period.
Back in 1956, Elvis Presley got the chance to star in his first movie for 20th Century Fox, which was a Western film that was originally called The Reno Brothers. The person in charge of music for the movie, Ken Darby, wanted to find old Civil War songs that were free to use and would match the time period of the film. He ended up picking a song called Aura Lee.
Darby made sure to keep the original tune the same while creating completely new romantic words for the song. Since there was a publishing agreement with Hill & Range, any songwriters who wanted Elvis to perform their songs had to give up 50% of the credit they would normally get. As a result, the song ended up being credited to Elvis Presley and Vera Matson, who was actually Ken Darby’s wife and a pen name he used for his work.
Elvis laid down this track on August 24, 1956, inside the 20th Century Fox studios. Breaking away from what he normally did, this was his very first non-rock ballad, and he recorded it solo without his regular touring band or the backup singers he usually worked with.
On September 9, 1956, Elvis performed Love Me Tender on The Ed Sullivan Show. The performance was successful and RCA received more than a million advance orders for the single before it even came out officially. This meant it was already a gold record. Because of all the crazy buzz around the track, 20th Century Fox actually changed the movie’s name from The Reno Brothers to Love Me Tender before it came out in theaters that November.
Love Me Tender became #3 on Billboard’s R&B Chart and stayed there for three weeks.
AT A GLANCE