(Credits: Alamy)
Sat 7 February 2026 3:00, UK
The fact that Elvis Presley was one of the best-selling artists to have ever lived is something often taken for granted.
He’s a caricature, an iconoclast, a mirage; a figure that increasingly few people actually remember from the time when he was alive. But to put him into context, Presley could have quite feasibly still been kicking around today, since he would have been 91 years old. He’s never been quite as far away as we think.
The point in all of this is that when you read the biography of the ‘King of Rock and Roll’ or start reeling off a list of many of his myriad achievements over the years, it’s easy to feel like this was someone cast very far away. Indeed, to a certain extent, that was true in the sense that he cultivated a global status without ever leaving the United States.Â
But even though the statistics can be hard and unfathomable, they do achieve some level of talking when it comes to understanding the status of Presley, simply because there is very little else to beat him. With an immeasurable 21 number one hits in the UK, his record is still one that stands today in terms of its longevity.
Yet within this, there was one song that stuck out as the shiniest crown jewel among the rest, for reigning at the top of the charts for the longest time. The year was 1960, and a decade that would change the entire scope of the world was just on the horizon. In hindsight, maybe Presley was trying to tell people that when he said ‘It’s Now or Never’.
How long did ‘It’s Now or Never’ stay at number one?
It’s a particularly massive feat that, for all Presley’s massive songbook of number one hits, ‘It’s Now or Never’ became unquestionably the most successful within these ranks, sitting pretty at the top of the charts for no less than eight consecutive weeks in the UK. In addition to the five weeks it spent crowning the charts in the US, it was an absolute stormer.
Without wanting to take away the shine of what is otherwise clearly a beacon of sonic history, there were some boringly mundane logistical issues which undoubtedly contributed to the song reigning at the number one spot for as long as it did. It was mainly down to the fact that roadblocks to the rights of ‘It’s Now or Never’ prevented it from being released in the UK for some time after the rest of the world.
But in that time, world had managed to leap across the pond that this tune was undeniably one of Presley’s best, so the frenetic energy built up so much in the form of advanced orders that, by the time it did actually hit the British airwaves, it rocket launched all the way straight to the top spot, refusing to budge for the next two months.
You could argue that there were many other Presley songs which embodied the true spirit of the early beginnings of rock and roll far better, but then again, when you realise that ‘It’s Now or Never’ was his most seismic international hit, there’s nothing you can compare it with. Presley was king, no question – but his greatest legacy lay in the mantra of seizing the moment.
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