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Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Are you lonesome tonight,
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day

When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?

Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?
I wonder if you`re lonesome tonight
You know someone said that the world`s a stage
And each must play a part.

Fate had me playing in love you as my sweet heart.
Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance
You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue
Then came act two, you seemed to change and you acted strange

And why I`ll never know.
Honey, you lied when you said you loved me
And I had no cause to doubt you.
But I`d rather go on hearing your lies

Than go on living without you.
Now the stage is bare and I`m standing there
With emptiness all around
And if you won`t come back to me

Then make them bring the curtain down.
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?

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Are You Lonesome Tonight?  was written in 1926. and  recorded several times An additional spoken part was later introduced to the song , following lines from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ (Act II Scene VII: All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts)

In 1960,  Elvis Presley  (1935 –1977), after  military service, recorded the song, which was an immediate success. It marked  a startling change of direction: it was a tender, perhaps even sugary ballad slow-moving ballad, full of soul and intense and intimate power. It was beautifully sung, with the kind of voice Presley had already shown on ‘Silent Night’

Even the spoken section , a part that could easily fall into parody,  felt right, (yet, often, at live performances, he would swap the actual lyrics for humorous ones.)