Two months after the release of the soundtrack album of the blockbuster "Blue Hawaii", RCA Victor issued a single with "Rock-A-Hula Baby" and "Can't Help Falling In Love". The 45 was shipped on November 21, 1961. Both tracks appeard on Billboard's "Hot 100" on December 4th. "Rock-A-Hula Baby" was first listed at number 62, stayed on the hitparade for nine weeks and peaked at number 23. Right from the start the supposed b-side was more popular. It started at number 57, had a run of 14 weeks and became a number 2 hit. In March 1962 Elvis received a Gold Award from the RIAA, 30 years later the status was updated to Platinum. The single was a global success and sold four million units. This amount of physical sales equals 600 million paid streams.

The single is not available on the streaming platforms, but the songs can be found on the album "Blue Hawaii" (1961). In 2016 the complete Presley catalogue was restored and remastered by Vic Anesini for a boxed set of 60 compact discs called "The Album Collection". Sony Music Entertainment provides the streaming platforms with the same versions of the individual tracks, albeit in 24 bit/90 khz flac. That means, if the platform of your choice supports high resolution audio, you can enjoy the songs in the same quality Sony used to scan and master them. On Spotify, which has a market share of approximately 30% and is the only platform that publishes streaming figures, "Rock-A-Hula Baby" accumulates 7 million streams, "Can't Help Falling In Love" clocks in at more than a billion streams. Therefore the supposed b-side is the most requested Presley track on Spotify!

To create a recognition factor, RCA used the cover photo of the album and also mentioned the longplayer in huge letters. To benefit from the latest dance crace, "Rock-A-Hula Baby" was billed as "Twist Special".

When RCA came up with the idea to release the single, Colonel Parker rejected the plan. He was sure, that the 45 would be a commercial failture, because it didn't offer anything new. Finally the manager agreed to the release, because RCA offered his client royalties for a million copies, regardless the actual sales figures.

This is penned by Fred Wise, Ben Weisman and Dolores Fuller. The latter one said in an interview, that she was inspired by "The Twist". In my view "Rock-A-Hula Baby" is a solid movie tune. On March 23, 1961 Elvis recorded the song within five takes. RCA re-released the tune in 1970 on the boxed set "Worldwide 50 Gold Award Hits - Volume 1".

"Can't Help Falling In Love" is based on the French "Plaisir d'amour", which was written in 1785 by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian and Johann Paul Aegidius Martini Schwarzendorf. It was adapted by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore and George David Weiss. On March 23, 1961 Elvis needed 29 takes to come up with a satisfactory performance. It surely wasn't an easy task, but the result is one of the greatest love songs ever. It's just achingly beautiful! Later the song was also used on the boxed set "Worldwide 50 Gold Award Hits - Volume 1" (1970) and on the album "A Legendary Performer - Volume 1" (1974). Live versions can be found on the albums "Elvis" (1968), "From Memphis To Vegas / From Vegas To Memphis" (1969), "Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden" (1972), "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite" (1973), "Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis" (1974) and "Elvis In Concert" (1977). But the king never even came close to the perfection and beauty of his studio recording.