Elvis Presley’s three greatest songs of the 1960s, according to Tom Petty

Tom Petty, though not part of rock and roll's original 1950s and '60s wave, drew heavily on pioneers such as Elvis Presley in shaping his own sound, blending traditional roots with a more modern sensibility from the release of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' debut album in 1976. In a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone, Petty singled out three Presley songs from the 1960s, a decade in which Presley was slowing his output and moving away from straightforward rock and roll, as the tracks that most shaped his own musical development.

Petty's selections were "A Mess of Blues" (1960), which he praised for sounding "triumphant" despite sad lyrics; "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame" (1961), which he said taught him about arranging instruments together; and "Can't Help Falling in Love" (1961), Presley's most famous and stylistically distinct pick, which Petty said would "make you swoon every time" it played on the radio. Petty noted he preferred Presley's pre-Army work but acknowledged the King "did come back and do a few great things."