{"id":369401,"date":"2026-01-14T13:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369401\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T13:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:39:09","slug":"the-classic-roy-orbison-song-that-elvis-rejected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369401\/","title":{"rendered":"The classic Roy Orbison song that Elvis rejected"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Roy<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Jack de Nijs \/Anefo \/ Nationaal Archief \/ MGM)<\/p>\n

Wed 14 January 2026 10:00, UK <\/p>\n

A cruel and unfeeling place which has crushed the dreams of countless individuals over the decades, the music industry is not a place for the faint-hearted; even a songwriter as legendary as Roy Orbison<\/a> struggled to gain any traction during his early years, before his timeline was forever changed by one unsuspecting song.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s difficult to imagine now, Orbison spent the vast majority of the 1950s as a hopeful yet failing young musician, struggling to find anybody interested in his distinctive vocal tones or rockabilly rhythms. After all, if you look at the prevailing stars of the first rock and roll age \u2013 the likes of Elvis<\/a> or Little Richard, for instance \u2013 Orbison doesn\u2019t exactly blend in. So, before the decade was out, the songwriter had all but given up on his dreams of musical stardom.<\/p>\n

Instead of going out on the road and peddling his material to any record label that would listen, Orbison chose instead to pursue the thankless career of writing songs for other artists, hoping to support his blossoming young family with the royalty cheques that those songs would surely bring. In the end, though, it didn\u2019t quite work out like that. <\/p>\n

One such track that Orbison wrote \u2013 alongside his partner Joe Melson \u2013 in the hopes of selling it off to the highest bidder was 1960\u2019s \u2018Only the Lonely\u2019<\/a>. A pulchritudinous heartbreak anthem typical of that era in pop, the song was perfectly suited to Orbison\u2019s deeply emotive performance style, but after more than a few failed attempts to break into the charts, he chose instead to sell the song to Elvis Presley. <\/p>\n

As the biggest star on the face of the planet at that time, Orbison was far from being the only hopeful young songwriter to try to sell their wares to Presley, and it didn\u2019t take long for \u2018The King\u2019 to refuse the track, despite it being tonally similar to some of his biggest hits, and almost written with his voice in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, Orbison looked to The Everly Brothers as his next port of call, but the pair were equally unenthusiastic about the idea. To their credit, though, The Everly Brothers didn\u2019t just turn down the song, they also reportedly convinced Orbison to record the track himself. <\/p>\n

Seemingly, when The Everly Brothers give you a piece of advice, you stick to it. So, the songwriter went down to RCA\u2019s studio in Nashville in 1960 and laid down \u2018Only the Lonely\u2019, which \u2013 unbeknownst to him at the time \u2013 would carve out the entire basis of his signature sound. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the single quickly became a hit, peaking at number two on the US singles chart and spending two weeks at the top spot in the United Kingdom. Thus, the song that Orbison had tried desperately to sell or give away actually became his salvation, effectively launching his recording career as well as defining his iconic sound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even Elvis Presley had to stand in utter admiration of Orbison\u2019s recording, with the performer reportedly buying multiple copies of the single upon hearing it for the first time. Looking back, \u2018Only the Lonely\u2019 is not Orbison\u2019s best recording of all time, but it nevertheless formed an essential moment in his musical career, responsible for giving the world one of its greatest performers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Jack de Nijs \/Anefo \/ Nationaal Archief \/ MGM) Wed 14 January 2026 10:00,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[18254,96,91001,128,30381,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-369401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-everly-brothers","tag-music","tag-roy-orbison","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}