"I walk a lonely street"

I was reading a biography of Mae Boren Axton, who co-wrote the song "Heartbreak Hotel" and was the mother of the singer, Hoyt Axton. Apparently, Mae's husband was in the Navy and stationed in the naval base in Jacksonville, Florida. Mae had brought her sons to join their father in Jacksonville from Oklahoma. She was teaching English in schools, but had a desire to write music. She and her writing partner saw a story in the Miami Herald which talked about a man in Miami who cut the labels off his clothes, destroyed all the references to his name in his personal effects, wrote a suicide note which read, "I walk a lonely street" and killed himself.

Reading the story, Mae and her partner decided there had to be a place for such heartbroken people to live and sat down and wrote the words and music to "Heartbreak Hotel." A disc jockey from West Virginia heard it and didn't like it, but agreed to sing it in the style of Elvis Presley. They sent the recording to Elvis and it became his first big original hit in 1956.

Heartbreak Hotel is a great song and was one of Elvis's best, but I would have to agree that that line from the suicide victim should live through history. "I walk a lonely street," Man, that is some sentiment. It deserves to be remembered on its own.