Heartbreak Hotel - Background and Writing

Background and Writing

The song was written in 1955 by Mae Boren Axton, a high school teacher with a background in musical promotion, and Jacksonville based singer–songwriter Tommy Durden. The lyrics were based on a report in The Miami Herald about a man who had destroyed all his identity papers and jumped to his death from a hotel window, leaving a suicide note with the single line, "I walk a lonely street". Axton and Durden give different accounts of how the song was written. Durden's account is that he had already written the song and performed it with his band the Swing Billys before he presented it to Axton. Axton's account is that Durden had only penned a few lines of the song, and asked her to help him finish it. She says that the report of the suicide "stunned" her, and she told Durden, "Everybody in the world has someone who cares. Let's put a Heartbreak Hotel at the end of this lonely street". They were interrupted by the arrival of Glen Reeves, a local performer who had previously worked with Axton. The duo asked Reeves to help with the song, but after hearing the title he remarked that it was "the silliest thing I've ever heard", and left them to finish it themselves. The song was written within an hour, and Durden recorded it onto Axton's tape recorder. Reeves returned, and after hearing the song he was asked to provide a voice demo for Axton in the style of Elvis Presley. Reeves obliged, but once again turned down the offer of a writing credit for his input.

Axton approached the popular singing duo The Wilburn Brothers, and offered them the chance to record "Heartbreak Hotel". However, Doyle and Teddy Wilburn declined, describing the song as "strange and almost morbid". Axton, however, agreed a publishing deal with Buddy Killen, a young Nashville bass player, who had recently set up his own publishing company called Tree Publishing. With a publishing deal in place, Axton arranged through Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker to present the song to Presley at the annual Country Music Disc Jockey Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was to be named the most promising male country star of 1955. Axton had been hired earlier in the year to publicise the Hank Snow Jamboree concerts at the Gator Bowl Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, which included Presley in the line up. During one concert Axton observed the reaction of the audience to Presley's performance, in which a crowd of screaming fans chased him back to his dressing room and ripped his clothes off to take as souvenirs. Axton followed Presley's career closely after this incident, and met him at a July 28 concert in Jacksonville, this time interviewing him for the local media. According to author Albert Goldman, Axton made writing Presley's first big hit one of her ambitions.

Rumors had been circulating in the press for several weeks that Presley, who had begun his career at Sun Records, was ready to move to RCA Victor to help launch him nationally. Axton played the demo to him in his room at the Andrew Jackson Hotel on November 10, 1955. Upon hearing the demo, Presley exclaimed "Hot dog, Mae, play that again!", and listened to it ten times, memorizing the song. After signing with RCA on November 21, 1955, Presley accepted Axton's offer of a third of the royalties if he made the song his first single on his new label. Presley performed the song for the first time in Swifton, Arkansas on December 9, 1955, and declared to the audience that it would be his first hit.