1961 Elvis Presley: Surrender

It's back to Latin climes for Presley here - 'Surrender' is a Pomus/Shuman arrangement of an Italian ballad called "Torna a Surriento" (which loosely translates as "Come Back to Sorrento", which itself sounds loosely like 'Return To Sender'. Spooky eh?). Presley takes this as his cue to wheel out his 'It's Now Or Never' persona to bust a lung at the heavy drama of it all. Only this time, neither the tune nor its arrangement lends itself very well to such showboating and Presley's cod operatics steamroller the song into submission, winning the battle but leaving the poor listener the loser with the "So, my darling, please surrender" lyric dripping with an oily smarm that's as false as a silicone tit. But as Elvis's stock was at such a high at this point, I doubt anybody really noticed. Lazy.