1972 · Behind the Songs
He almost didn’t record it. Then it became his last great rock and roll single — and his final Top 10 hit.
A Song He Didn’t Want
By early 1972, Elvis Presley was the undisputed king of the concert stage but a sporadic presence on the singles chart. His producer, Felton Jarvis, kept bringing him new material, and songwriter Dennis Linde’s “Burning Love” — a driving, insistent rocker — landed on the pile for a March 28, 1972 session at RCA Studio C in Hollywood. Presley reportedly wasn’t keen. The song felt a little frantic, a little unsubtle. Jarvis, who believed in it fiercely, kept pushing until Presley finally gave in and cut it.
It took only a handful of takes. Backed by his crack touring band — James Burton’s stinging lead guitar, the rhythm section he’d honed on the road — Presley attacked the song with a urgency he hadn’t shown in the studio for years. The arrangement is lean and propulsive: a chugging rhythm, Burton’s guitar fills answering the vocal, and Presley himself sounding like he meant every word.
The Chart Run
Released as a single on August 1, 1972, with “It’s a Matter of Time” on the flip side, “Burning Love” roared up the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at No. 2 that October. Only Chuck Berry’s novelty “My Ding-a-Ling” kept it from the top spot — a chart quirk that still rankles Presley fans. It was his last Top 10 hit during his lifetime, and his final great rock and roll record: proof that the voice which had invented the form in 1954 could still set it ablaze eighteen years later.
What to Listen For
Listen for the way Presley rides the song’s momentum. The verses are coiled and tense; the chorus releases like a valve blowing. Burton’s guitar is everywhere — stabbing, sliding, and driving the band forward. And listen for Presley’s ad-libs near the end, the little shouts and growls that tell you he’s having fun. This is not the polite Vegas crooner of caricature; this is a rock singer, fully engaged.
Dennis Linde, the Nashville writer who penned it, went on to a distinguished songwriting career (he later wrote the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl”), but “Burning Love” remains his most famous copyright — the song Elvis didn’t want, and the hit he couldn’t deny.
Legacy
“Burning Love” closed the circle. The boy who had scandalized America with “Hound Dog” in 1956 was still making vital, chart-topping rock and roll in 1972. It remains a staple of oldies radio, a highlight of every Presley compilation, and the definitive answer to anyone who claims the 1970s Elvis had lost his fire. He hadn’t. He just needed the right song — even if he had to be talked into it.