Song Analysis: Heartbreak Hotel

Heartbreak Hotel is a song that was recorded by Elvis Presley and was written by a high school teacher named Mae Axton and a steel guitar player named Tommy Durden. It was recorded and released in January 1956 by RCA Studios. Elvis was only 21 and Heartbreak Hotel was his first song with the new record label RCA in Nashville, Tennessee. He recorded the song with his band the Blue moon boys. It was his first million-seller and the bestselling single of 1956. It was top 5 on all pop charts simultaneously and later went to become a double platinum hit by the RIAA.
Heartbreak Hotel is an eight bar blues form progression which was the most common and that the song usually started on an E chord with heavy vocal reverberation. There is refrain on the “Been so lonely, baby” or repeated chorus that lets you now that the verse is about to start over. Also there is a guitar and

There was not much harmony in the song, or rather before the 60’s in general, but has harmonic tones of the era. The song attracted teens with an under line sexual rebellion that teens like but parents did not. The melody of the song could be considered memorable because it can remind you of a time that you lost some one that you love and now walking down that lonely street of being heartbroken. Rhythm for the heartbreak hotel is considered to be a simple time 4/4 or quadruple time signature that is a common time signature for Western popular music. This was the most common in rock, blues, funk, country, and pop. The song could have also been a compound or 12/8 (quadruple) time signature that was common in slower blues called the shuffle and doo-wop music. Genre for this song would have been blues, rock and roll, and rockabilly. The songs texture is a homophonic or homorhythmic texture where the primary voice plays a distinct melody and is supported by a clear