Written by Maurice Mysels and Ira Kosloff.
(Labels for early pressings have Mysels misspelled as Myself.) Elvis recorded
this song on April 14, 1956 at RCA studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Elvis,
Scotty Moore and Chet Atkins played guitar. Bill Black played the bass. D.J.
Fontana was on the drums and Marvin Huges played piano. Gordon Stoker, Ben Speer
and Brock Speer provided vocal accompaniment. In April 1956, Elvis and the band
were keeping a frantic tour schedule. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, arranged
for them to fly to Nashville for a one-day recording session after a show in
Amarillo, Texas. The chartered plane's pilot got lost flying in the dark and
there were problems with the fuel tank. Understandably, when they finally
arrived in Nashville, none of them was in the mood to record. At the studio RCA
presented Elvis with a gold record for "Heartbreak Hotel" and Life magazine had
photographer Don Cravens there to do a story on him. In the photos Elvis can be
seen recording in his stocking feet. In the three-hour session they recorded
only "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You". Elvis and the band flew back to
Memphis - this time with bad weather being the stress factor for their flight.
Then they rejoined the tour in Texas. The single "I Want You, I Need You, I Love
You" with "My Baby Left Me" as the flip side was released in May 1956. It had a
24-week run on the "Billboard" pop chart with one of those weeks at #1. It spent
11 weeks on the UK singles chart, peaking at #14. The song has also been
recorded by the Starlight Drifters and by Keith Sykes. Elvis's recording was
also used in the 1989 movie "Heart of Dixie".