About The Song
Elvis recorded Are You Lonesome Tonight? at RCA’s Nashville Studio B in the early morning hours of April 4, 1960. Musicians working the session were guitarists Scotty Moore and Hank Garland, bassist Bob Moore, drummers D.J. Fontana and Buddy Harman, and pianist Floyd Cramer. The Jordanaires provided their usual vocal backing.
When it was released in early November 1960, both Variety and Billboard predicted hit status for the record. (Not a stretch for either publication, considering Presley’s previous two singles that year, Stuck on You and It’s Now or Never had shot to the top of the charts.) Variety noted, “Elvis Presley’s ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ chalks up another smash hit in this restrained workover of the oldie.” Billboard’s review read, “Elvis Presley turns in a warm and touching performance on the oldie, which also features a tender recitation.”
The recitation was Elvis’ personal imprint on the song. The spoken part was not part of the original published lyrics, and so speculation grew around who had penned those words. It has been suggested that the recitation was based on Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” speech in As You Like It. That may be so, but who wrote the adapted lines for the song? In a short article in its December 12, 1960, issue, Billboard claimed to have found the answer.
Elvis’ Are You Lonesome Tonight? entered Billboard’s “Hot 100” at #35 on November 11, 1960. It charged past his own It’s Now or Never, which was at #47 that week, on it’s way down the chart after spending five weeks at #1. The next week Lonesome was at #2, before settling in at #1 on November 28, only it’s third week on the chart. It displaced Stay by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs in the top spot. Are You Lonesome Tonight? held on to #1 for six weeks, before giving way to Bert Kaempfert’s instrumental Wonderland by Night. Elvis’ record held the #2 spot for two weeks before starting its slow withdrawal from the chart. In the end, Are You Lonesome Tonight? spent 17 weeks in the “Hot 100,” 11 of them in the top 10.
Elvis wasn’t the only one to capitalize on his hit recording. At least five female singers took a ride on Presley’s rocket by recording answer records. In its December 5, 1960, edition, Billboard took notice of the phenomenon as follows:
“Elvis Presley’s smash hit waxing of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ has inspired the biggest flock of answer records to any one disking in years. And all of the answer disks are by fem artists, indicating the effect that Elvis still has his large, loyal and young female following. The answer records, complete with heartfelt recitations, include diskings by Dodie Stevens on Dot, Linda Lee on Shasta, Ricky Page on Rendezvous, Thelma Carpenter on Coral and Jeanne Black on Capitol.”
The first four versions were all titled, Yes, I’m Lonesome Tonight. They kept the original lyrics, adding only a change in the personal tense. Thus Turk and Handman were still credited as the writers and Bourne-Cromwell as publishers. Variety reported that at first the publishers “weren’t anxious for an ‘answer’ song so soon after the release of the Presley disk for fear that it hurt the original’s sales momentum.” However, since all four recordings adhered to the original lyrics, they couldn’t be stopped, and when it became clear that nothing was hindering sales of Elvis’s record, the publishers were said to be “walking on clouds.”
Jeanne Black went a little different route. Her answer song, Oh, How I Miss You Tonight, was a different tune, but with her own touching recitation added. “It is all as if they are singing to Elvis personally, thru the media of recording,” Billboard noted.
Video
Lyric
Are you lonesome tonight
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a bright summer day
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?I wonder if you’re lonesome tonight
You know someone said that the world’s a stage
And each of us must play a part
Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart
Act one was where we met
I loved you at first glance
You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue
Then came act two, you seemed to change, you acted strange
And why I’ve never known
Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you
But I’d rather go on hearing your lies
Than to go on living without you
Now the stage is bare and I’m standing there
With emptiness all around
And if you won’t come back to me
Then they can bring the curtain downIs your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?