Ask Me

In 1964, Elvis’ new song ‘Ain’t That Loving You Baby’ was released and on the B side was ‘Ask Me.’ Various Elvis songs derived from foreign songs and ‘Ask Me’ was no exception.

The song it was based on was an Italian song called ‘Io,’ which simply translates to ‘I’ and was translated into English by Bernie Baum, Bill Giant and Florence Kaye. The Italian song was written in 1958 by Domenico Modugno.

Modungo entered the music industry in the same year that Elvis first cut a record, 1953, and contained to be a successful musician, representing the Italians in the 1958 and 1960 European Song Contests.

Also like Elvis, Modungo was an actor and appeared in 44 films. Another similarity to Presley is that in the 70’s he changed his style to a more middle of the road approach, but in 1984 he suffered a severe stroke and was never the same again.

After ending his music career in that same year, he went into politics and served the Radical Party for some time, as well as being a member of the Senate - in the 90’s he returned to music and his last song was co-written by his son in 1993, before dying from a heart attack, aged 66, in 1994.