"One Sided Love Affair"
Single by Elvis Presley
from the album Elvis Presley
A-side
ReleasedAugust 1956
RecordedJanuary 30, 1956
Length2:09
Songwriter(s)Bill Campbell
Elvis Presley singles chronology
"Blue Moon" / "Just Because"
(1956)		 "Money Honey'" / "One-Sided Love Affair"
(1956)		 "Shake, Rattle and Roll" / "Lawdy Miss Clawdy"
(1956)

"One Sided Love Affair" (or "One-sided Love Affair") is a song by Elvis Presley from his 1956 debut album Elvis Presley.[1][2]

Later, in August in the same year (1956) it was also released as a single,[2] with "Money Honey" on the flip side.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Writing and recording history

The song (both the words and the music) was written by Bill Campbell.[13][14]

Presley recorded the song on January 30, 1956, at the RCA Studio in New York.[15][1]

There were six songs handpicked by A&R person Steve Sholes himself for Presley to record for his first album at the sessions, but "One-sided Love Affair" was the only one Presley liked and recorded.[16][14]

In a March 24, 1956 interview the song was cited by Presley as his favorite from the album.[17]

Musical style and lyrics

The book Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan note Presley's cynicism in the song, whose lyrics go:[13]

If you wanna be loved,
baby you gotta love me too
'Cos I ain't for no one-sided love affair:

Well a fair exchange ain't no robbery
An' the whole world knows that it's true ...[13]

The book The Art of Songwriting calls the song itself (its music and words) "unexceptional", but praises Presley's performance and the eventual result:[14]

With apologies to its author Bill Campbell, the music and words of 'One sided love affair', an unexceptional composition given by A&R man Stephen Sholes to Elvis Presley for possible inclusion on his debut album, presented numerous challenges to the performer as he entered RCA studios in New York one winter's morning in 1956. Listening to the eventual recording, we are led to identify with Cloonan's observation that the way lyrics are sung may bear little relation to how they appear on the page (2005: 79). As a composition, the lyrics, particularly those in the verses, project the most straightforward of romantic propositions, altering only to introduce slight variations on the type of romance to be reciprocated. As lyric poetry it is negligible, as conversational language it is basic, an impression amplified by the familiar, generic twelve-bar blues of the music. The lyric in the bridge, which stubbornly favours the tonic chord, ventures into some complex, nearunintelligible colloquial slang, that in terms of continuity bears little resemblance to the mumbling mumbling ramble of the character who delivers the preceding verse. For an interval of eight bars, it is as if the narrator has swiftly downed a very strong cup of coffee.

As a composition, 'One sided love affair' is random enough to sound unfinished, so Campbell must have thought it was all his birthdays rolled into one when he heard what Elvis, Scotty and Bill had done with it.I n his percussive delivery of the words and in particular his ability to fuse the surly and the comedic by inventing a version of himself capable of bridging the two, Elvis uses his musical and phrasing skills to project the song, as a recording in vivid technicolour. Aware of the interpretative dynamic best suited to an optimum performance, the band stays in the background while Elvis, bouncing consonants around the vocal booth, miraculously forges the text into a convincing patois.[14]

The book Elvis Presley, Reluctant Rebel: His Life and Our Times: His Life and Our Times describes "One-sided Love Affair" as a "rollicking" number, a "boogie-woogie polished to a pop gleam and without the barrelhouse danger, a concept already familiar in the swing era."[18]

Track listings

Singles

7" single (1956)[19]

  1. "Money Honey" (2:32)
  2. "One Sided Love Affair" (2:10)

10" shellac single (RCa 20 6641, September 1956)[9]

  1. "Money Honey"
  2. "One Sided Love Affair"

10" shellac single (1956)[20]

  1. "Tutti Frutti" (2:32)
  2. "One Sided Love Affair" (2:10)

EPs

2-EP set Elvis Presley (EPB-1254, April 1956)[21]

Side 1

  1. "Blue Suede Shoes"
  2. "I'm Counting on You"

Side 2

  1. "Tutti Frutti"
  2. "Tryin' to Get to You"

Side 3

  1. "I Got a Woman"
  2. "One Sided Love Affair"

Side 4

  1. "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)"
  2. "I'll Never Let You Go"

References

  1. 1 2 Michael Gray (21 September 2006). The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-8264-6933-5.
  2. 1 2 Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (13 October 1956). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. pp. 18–. ISSN 0006-2510. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  3. ↑ Kevin Crouch; Tanja Crouch (9 April 2012). The Gospel According To Elvis. Music Sales Group. pp. 150–. ISBN 978-0-85712-758-7.
  4. ↑ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (6 April 1959). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. pp. 28–. ISSN 0006-2510. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  5. ↑ Tim Neely; Martin Popoff (28 July 2009). Goldmine Price Guide to 45 RPM Records. Krause Publications. pp. 534–. ISBN 978-0-89689-958-2.
  6. ↑ Ron Barry (1976). The Elvis Presley American discography. Spectator Service, Maxigraphics.
  7. ↑ Jerry Osborne (1983). Presleyana: Elvis Presley record price guide. O'Sullivan Woodside. ISBN 978-0-89019-083-8.
  8. ↑ Герои рок-н-ролла. ОЛМА Медиа Групп. 2004. pp. 103–. ISBN 978-5-224-04606-5.
  9. 1 2 John A. Whisler (June 1981). Elvis Presley, reference guide and discography. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810814349.
  10. ↑ Chuck Miller (28 February 2011). Warman's American Records. Krause Publications. pp. 216–. ISBN 978-1-4402-2821-6.
  11. ↑ Neal Umphred; Linda Jones; Walter Piotrowski (1990). Elvis: A Touch of Gold : the American Record Collector's Price Guide to Elvis Presley Records & Memorabilia. White Dragon Press.
  12. ↑ Bob Leszczak (10 October 2013). Who Did It First?: Great Rhythm and Blues Cover Songs and Their Original Artists. Scarecrow Press. pp. 147–. ISBN 978-0-8108-8867-8.
  13. 1 2 3 Michael Gray (2000). Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan. Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-70762-1.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Andrew West (14 July 2016). The Art of Songwriting. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-1-4725-2440-9.
  15. ↑ "One-Sided Love Affair : by Elvis Presley : Elvis Presley Lyrics : The Elvis SongDataBase". Elvis Australia : Official Elvis Presley Fan Club.
  16. ↑ Bar Biszick-Lockwood (2010). Restless Giant: The Life and Times of Jean Aberbach and Hill and Range Songs. University of Illinois Press. pp. 200–. ISBN 978-0-252-07694-7.
  17. ↑ Jerry Osborne (1 August 1999). Elvis - Word for Word: What He Said, Exactly As He Said It. Jerry Osborne Enterprises. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-0-932117-29-8.
  18. ↑ Glen Jeansonne; David Luhrssen; Dan Sokolovic (18 February 2011). Elvis Presley, Reluctant Rebel: His Life and Our Times: His Life and Our Times. ABC-CLIO. pp. 118–. ISBN 978-0-313-35905-7.
  19. ↑ "Elvis Presley - Money Honey at Discogs". Discogs. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
  20. ↑ "Elvis Presley - Tutti Frutti / One Sided Love Affair (Shellac) at Discogs". Discogs. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
  21. ↑ Jerry Osborne (1 July 2007). Presleyana VI - the Elvis Presley Record, CD, and Memorabilia Price Guide. Jerry Osborne Enterprises. pp. 75–. ISBN 978-0-932117-49-6.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.