Barely eight weeks after "Only Believe" / "Life" RCA Victor released another Presley single. On June 22, 1971 "I'm Leavin'" / "Heart Of Rome" was shipped and on July 10th Billboard included it on the "Hot 100". It had a run of nine weeks and peaked at number 36. The record also made it on the "Easy Listening Chart" where it stayed for eight weeks and climed up to number 2. On the domestic market "I'm Leavin'" / "Heart Of Rome" sold 600,000 copies, worldwide a million fans pickt it up. Today this would be 150 million paid streams. It appears that RCA Victor and Colonel Parker very quickly realized that "Only Believe" / "Life" was a commercial disaster and hastily threw another 45 on the market. However, the result was anything but satisfactory.

Of course this single is not available on the streaming platforms. While "Heart Of Rome" can be found on "Love Letters From Elvis" (1971), Sony Music Entertainment included "I'm Leavin'" as a bonus track on the digital version of "Elvis Now" (1972). 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, "I'm Leavin'" accumulates 1.3 million streams, "Heart Of Rome" hasn't even found a million listeners.

RCA Victor used a photo from the Vegas stint in early 1970 and didn't forget to mention that "Heart Of Rome" was a track from the king's latest album "Love Letters From Elvis". I guess it was a desperate attempt to push the poor sales of the long player.

The singer bemoans that his lady keeps him at distance, but he is sure about not being able to handle the loneliness. In contrast to many other Presley songs of this kind, the lyrics are quite subtle and the melody is not dramatic or kitschy at all. I am pretty sure that "I'm Leavin'" became a single a-sidy by Elvis' request, because the song is not really suitable for public broadcast. However, the singer must have liked it a lot, because he performed it live on a regular basis in 1971, 1973 and 1974. The ballad was written by Michael Jarrett and Sonny Charles. Elvis recorded it on May 20, 1971 at RCA Studio B in Nashville/Tennessee. Five days later Felton Jarvis overdubbed strings.

"Heart Of Rome" was written by Geoff Stephens, Alan Blaikly and Ken Howard. It was recorded on June 6, 1970, the master take was spliced of take 3 and take 1 (workpart). Strings and horns were added on July 20th. As the title suggests the singer is in the Italian capital and suffers because of the absence of his loved one. He does so in a melodramatic, loud voiced way.