The songwriter says he did exactly that and sat down at the piano to first write the melody before penning the lyrics.

Peter Guralnick wrote in Careless Love, the second volume of his Elvis biography, that the lyrics “contained sentiments that under ordinary circumstances would have been assumed to be about an ex-lover, but in this case it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine that Elvis might be singing of his mother.”

Red agreed for Elvis’ name to be on the song as he had contributed to its conception, and Elvis was named a co-writer.

Writing in a review of the album,  Bruce Eder & Neal Umphred described the song as “haunting, gospel-like”, adding: “That’s Someone You Never Forget” which was co-authored by Presley and is one of his best non-hit songs of this era.”