After Elvis Presley returned from the US Army, he was eager to return to continue his singing career. The Mississippi star was drafted into the Army in 1958, before being sent to a barracks in Friedberg, Germany, for two years.
At the time, he was worried that it might ruin the career he was building. But in 1960 he returned with an incredible record, Elvis Is Back, his first new set of songs since his 1957 Christmas album.
But Paul Evans, the songwriter, made a terrible mistake while sending songs to Elvis.
Elvis has never written his own songs, but he will never record something that someone else has already released. Of course, there were exceptions to this rule. He was happy to cover record tracks, such as Are You Lonesome Tonight and Always on my mind.
But in order to score his comeback, he wanted a series of new original songs to show off his career comeback after the military.
Elvis’ first song charted a “dark” path for the King, as Paul revealed in his book, Happy Go Lucky Me: A Lifetime of Music.
Paul wrote, “Presley recorded four of my songs. The first of them was I Gotta Know, a song that took a mysterious path to reach Elvis.”
Paul explained that he had already set gears for Elvis to release I Gotta Know on his comeback album. But the song was left wrong by the young British superstar Cliff Richard.
Paul recalls: “By mistake, the song found its way into a collection of songs that were sent to the Hill & Range London office for presentation to Cliff Richard.”
And Cliff was enamored with the newly discovered path – which he thought was his own.
Paul said Cliff’s recording of the song was pushed under the rug. “[Music publisher] Freddy Benstock managed to keep Cliff Richard’s recording cool, “And my song came out on Presley’s single as a B-side to Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
The main difference was that Cliff’s version of I Gotta Know was not released as a single, and thus was not charted on the Billboard 100.
Meanwhile, Elvis has fared much better with Are You Lonesome Tonight? And with I Gotta Know, too.
Elvis’ version of I Gotta Know peaked at number 20 on the Billboard 100, and was there for 11 weeks.
The same version was later released again on Elvis’ Golden Records album Volume 3.
The album was another success, reaching number three on the Billboard 200, and remaining on the charts for 63 weeks.
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