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TL;DR:

  • Elvis Presley’s “She’s Not You” was written in a famous building.
  • The people who wrote it were friends.
  • The tune climbed to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it appeared on a notable compilation.

Elvis Presley‘s career had more ups and downs than a Six Flags roller coaster. His song “She’s Not You” represented a serious (bad) demarcation point in his career. A number of notable songwriters worked on it. Subsequently, the tune became a massive hit for the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Elvis Presley’s ‘She’s Not You’ was the final hit 2 notable musicians wrote for Elvis

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were a songwriting team known for penning Elvis songs. Some of those songs, like “Jailhouse Rock” and “Don’t,” were originally released by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Other Elvis songs that Leiber and Stoller wrote — such as “Hound Dog” and “Bossa Nova Baby” — were initially recorded by other artists.

During a 2020 interview with Elvis Australia, Stoller discussed the singer’s movie King Creole. “We virtually stopped writing for Elvis after that,” he said. “After King Creole, the only songs we submitted to Elvis were songs that we’d already written or recorded before.”

Stoller was asked if the song “Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello” was meant for Elvis. “No, it wasn’t,” he replied. “As a matter of fact, with one exception, we stopped writing for him altogether and only submitted previously written and already recorded songs. As for ‘Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello,’ we had a demo that was considerably different than the way Elvis did it. It had a very different feel, less country, more Latin.” “She’s Not You” became the last song Leiber and Stoller wrote for the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Mike Stoller teamed up with other writers who worked for Elvis Presley for the song

Stoller recalled the origin of “She’s Not You.” “[Songwriter] Doc Pomus called us up one day,” he said. “We were all in the Brill Building. Doc was an old friend, and we had produced lots of Doc and Morty [Shuman]’s songs with The Drifters.” For context, Pomus and Shuman wrote Elvis tunes such as “Viva Las Vegas” and “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame” and the Brill Building is a famous office building where songwriters worked.

“Mort had either gone off to Japan or moved to Paris,” Stoller added. “Doc called us and said, ‘Come on up. Let’s write a song for Elvis.’ So we wrote ‘She’s Not You’ with him, the three of us.”

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“She’s Not You” became a big hit in the United States. The tune reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. It spent a total of 10 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. 

“She’s Not You” appeared on the compilation album Elvis: 30 #1 Hits. That record was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for three weeks. Altogether, Elvis: 30 #1 Hits remained on the chart for a total of 169 weeks.

“She’s Not You” is a good song even if Leiber and Stoller didn’t write new songs for Elvis again.

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