A music countdown of any kind would never be complete without a song from the King himself, Elvis.  And a Valentine’s Day list of great love songs would never be complete without his 1961 hit  “Can’t Help Falling In Love“.

Written by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore & George David Weiss, the song hit #2 on the Pop chart & #1 on the Easy Listening chart for six weeks.  It was featured in the movie “Blue Hawaii” and the soundtrack went on to spend 20 weeks in the #1 spot on the Albums Chart.

I cannot imagine anyone, male or female, who is not captivated by Elvis’ delivery of such beautiful and heartfelt lyrics:

“Take my hand
take my whole life too
For I can’t help
falling in love with you”

This song was Elvis’ finale for the last decade of his career, but my guess is women swooned as much then as they did during the early days of his hip shaking career.  One listen to this or any Elvis song for that matter and you understand why there was no one like Elvis Aaron Presley and there never will be.

He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 by Julian and Sean Lennon.  This year would have marked the King’s 80th birthday and even though he has been gone almost 40 years, you can still celebrate his legacy by taking a pilgrimage to Graceland.

I had the exquisite pleasure of hearing Bruce Springsteen perform this song as one of his encores, and it was phenomenal.  Of course Bruce’s voice is nothing like Elvis’ but then again who’s is?  But Springsteen gave the song all the passion he had , which made his performance simply gorgeous.  It was especially poignant for me as I sat there in the crowd thinking, “I am watching my musical idol sing a song by my mother’s musical idol.  Too cool.”

If only she could have been there with me to enjoy it in person.  Sigh.

Enjoy!!!