Why Glenn Danzig Loves Elvis Presley’s ‘One Night’

Glenn Danzig has always been inspired by classic rock and he took that to a new level by recording an entire album of Elvis Presley songs. One of the tracks on the album was a rendition of Elvis’ “One Night,” which he had covered before. Notably, Elvis was not the first artist to record “One Night.” The tune’s writer revealed what he thought of the “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” singer’s rendition.

Glenn Danzig covered Elvis Presley’s ‘One Night’ several times

Danzig first became famous through his punk band The Misfits. Since then, he’s also been part of the groups Samhain and Danzig. With the latter group, he released an Elvis cover album simply called Danzig Sings Elvis. The record includes a recording of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll‘s “One Night.”

During a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, the “Mother” singer was asked what drew him to “One Night.” “It’s a great song,” he opined. “There’s a lot of different versions of it that I did while I was in the studio with multiple vocal takes. I did some a little softer, some a little harder. Some in between. The one I decided on is the one I like the best.”

Glenn Danzig has a long history of covering Elvis Presley songs

The heavy metal star discussed his history of covering Elvis songs. “We started doing ‘Trouble’ with Samhain,” he said. “But I remember even back in The Misfits days, we would cover an Elvis song here or there. I know that we did ‘Got a Lot o’ Livin’ to Do!’ once live and ‘Blue Christmas’ once, we started it out like regular Elvis and then made it all punky after that, at a Christmas show. I’m pretty sure Jerry [Only, Misfits bassist] is still a big Elvis fan.

“In Danzig, we did ‘One Night’ acoustically and we did it loud, too,” he added. “And of course we did ‘Trouble.’ But I wanted to take a different approach with this record, and that’s what we did.”

What the writer of ‘One Night’ thought of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s cover

“One Night” was written by Dave Bartholomew, the same songwriter behind Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling.” The first artist to record “One Night” was rhythm and blues singer Smiley Lewis. It’s one of many famous Elvis songs that was actually a cover. Others include “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Blue Hawaii,” “Blue Christmas,” “Hound Dog,” and “Suspicious Minds.”

During a 1985 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Bartholomew was asked about the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll recording his song. Bartholomew felt Elvis’ cover sounded fine, particularly praising its vocals. Bartholomew thought that Elvis was so “hot” that he could have recorded anything and gotten away with it. That might have been true when Elvis released “One Night” in 1958. However, Elvis’ output became less and less dignified as the 1960s went on. The public generally did not respond well to his kitschier material.

Elvis helped bring “One Night” to a different audience and so did Danzig.