"Surrender" is a number 1 song recorded by Elvis Presley and published by Elvis Presley Music in 1961. It is an adaptation by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman of the music of a 1902 Neapolitan ballad by Giambattista and Ernesto de Curtis entitled "Torna a Surriento" ("Come Back to Sorrento"). It hit number one in the US and UK in 1961 and eventually became one of his best-selling singles. It would hold the record for most consecutive number ones by a solo artist until Whitney Houston broke that record. This was one of 25 songs which Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman wrote for Presley. It has been recorded by many other artists, including Michael Buble, the Residents, and Il Volo.
“Surrender” is a weird song. The arrangement is like a Latin jazz version of a James Bond theme. It’s grand and sweeping and orchestral, but it just keeps jumping around, never settling still. Elvis sells it, but he doesn’t tap into any emotional truth in the song, the way he’d just done on “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” “Surrender” doesn’t have a deeper emotional truth like that. Instead, Presley hams it up, hitting all his affectations as hard as he can, sounding like a cartoon version of himself while the Jordanaires, his regular backing singers, do Western-movie ahhh-ahhhs around him. It’s not an all-time Elvis song or anything, but Presley took something that should’ve been a simple cash-in and made it into a resounding goof. Good on him.