DOWNLOAD THE SONGSHEET
It's Now Or Never (WORD)
It's Now Or Never (PDF)
To play in the same key as Elvis in GCEA tuning, put your capo on the 4th fret!
"It's Now or Never" is one of two popular songs based on the Italian song of the Neapolitan language, "'O Sole mio" (music by Eduardo di Capua); the other is "There's No Tomorrow", recorded by U.S. singer Tony Martin in 1949, which inspired Presley's version. In the late 1950s, while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army, Presley heard Martin's recording. It's also likely that he was inspired to record this because of his fondness for Mario Lanza who had first popularized "'O Sole Mio" to American audiences and who had died the year before "It's Now or Never" was recorded.
"It's Now or Never" is one of the best-selling singles by Presley (20 million copies), and one of the best-selling physical singles of all time. It was recorded by Bill Porter at RCA Studio B in Nashville. In 1960, "It's Now or Never" was a number-one record in the U.S. for Elvis Presley, spending five weeks at number one and the UK, where it spent eight weeks at the top in 1960 and an additional week at number one in 2005 as a re-issue, and numerous other countries, selling in excess of 20 million physical copies worldwide, Elvis Presley's biggest international single ever. Its British release was delayed for some time because of rights issues, allowing the song to build up massive advance orders and to enter the UK Singles Chart at number one, a very rare occurrence at the time. "It's Now or Never" peaked at number seven on the R&B charts.