It Hurts Me
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Billboard | Favorable[1] |
"It Hurts Me" is a 1964 Top 40 song recorded by Elvis Presley on RCA Victor. Credited to Joy Byers and Charles E. Daniels, "It Hurts Me" is a ballad that was a new song when recorded by Elvis Presley on January 12, 1964.[2] Record producer and songwriter Bob Johnston revealed that he had actually written the songs attributed to his wife Joy Byers, including "It Hurts Me".
Background
This non-movie song became the B-side of an Elvis Presley movie single, "Kissin' Cousins", released February 10, 1964. The A-side reached number 12 in the U.S. singles charts, while "It Hurts Me" reached number 29 but never became well-known or attained "the classic stature promised by the song and the performance."[2]
The session that produced this recording marked the beginning of a twenty-eight month period during which Presley recorded no other non-movie songs.[2]
Elvis recorded a new version on June 20, 1968 and used this song during the montage medley sequence of his 1968 NBC Comeback Special.
There is a notable Spanish version in the Latin genre by Marco T Marco Tulio Sanchez, known as the voice of rock and roll in Colombia.
Origins
Before Christmas in 1962, as Charlie Daniels was driving from El Paso, Texas, to the East Coast, he began forming the idea that would become the song. Afterwards Bob Johnston invited him to Nashville to co-write songs. They finished this one together. Daniels recalled: "We just went on, and we finished it up, and Bob did a demo on it, and the company that he was writing for at the time---Hill and Range was the parent company---handled Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music, which was Elvis Presley's two companies."[3]
Daniels explained: "Elvis came to town. He picked it up and held it for almost a year in what was called his portfolio. You know, they'd pick songs out for Elvis and when he'd go in to record, he'd review them, and if he liked it, he'd do it. So anyway, he recorded it, and it was by far the biggest thing that had ever happened to me in my life." Although he never met Elvis Presley, Daniels did meet his daughter, Lisa Marie, at an event in Memphis: "I just got to tell her, I said, 'You know your dad picked one of my songs. I was a big fan.'" He wrote that with her sunglasses on, she resembled her father so much that it's "spooky": "She looks like a miniature Elvis with, of course, feminine features."
Bob Johnston, who wrote the song with Daniels, was writing under the name "Joy Byers" and "Joe Byers" at the time. Daniels was credited as "Charles E. Daniels".[4]
References
Sources
- Jorgensen, Ernst (1998). Elvis Presley: A life in music. The complete recording sessions. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-18572-3.
