One Night With You

Song written by Dave Bartholomew, Pearl King and Anita Steiman. The song was originally written and recorded under the title ‘One Night (Of Sin)’ and had been a hit for Smiley Lewis. Elvis recorded a version of the song in its original form on 18 January 1957. This version would not be released until 1983.

Both Elvis’ manager and record company had reservations about the suggestive lyrics. Elvis did not give up on the song. He continued to play with it during his spare time, finally rewriting the lyrics that he felt were holding the song captive. It was Elvis himself who reworked ‘One night of sin is what I’m now paying for’ into ‘One night with you is what I’m now praying for.’ On 23 February 1957, at Radio Recorders in Los Angeles, he showed up with his new lyrics, feeling sure they would meet his label’s approval. It was issued as a single in October 1958 and peaked at number 4 on Billboard’s singles chart. The single reached number one twice on the UK Singles Chart: upon its original release in 1958, and again in January 2005 when the song became the UK’s 1000th number 1 single.

Kim Wilde performed a cover of this song on the 1987 TV special Love Me Tender, in which she also performed Big Hunk o’ Love and Treat Me Nice. The song appeared to have been pre-recorded in a studio, but was never released on record.