Always on My Mind

"Always on My Mind" is an American country music song by Johnny Christopher, Mark James and Wayne Carson Thompson originally recorded by Brenda Lee.

Allmusic lists over 300 recorded releases of the song in versions by dozens of performers. The most successful US version was performed by Willie Nelson. Successful covers in Europe were performed by Elvis Presley, and later Pet Shop Boys. At the 25th Grammy Awards held in 1983, the songwriters won Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Country Song; in addition, Willie Nelson's recording won for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

The song featured in the stage musical, Priscilla Queen of the Desert – the Musical

A cover appeared in the 2009 survival horror video game Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, featuring the series's prominent vocalist Mary Elizabeth McGlynn.

Elvis Presley version
Elvis Presley recorded his version of "Always on My Mind" on March 29, 1972. The song was released as the B-side of the Separate Ways single, which reached Gold status in the U.S for sales of over half a million copies. It was listed as a double sided hit reaching number 16 on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Singles chart in November 1972. In the UK "Always on My Mind" was the hit song and "Separate Ways" was the B-side. Brenda Lee's version had stalled at #45 on the country charts in 1972.

John Wesley Ryles version
In 1979, John Wesley Ryles reached number 20 on the U.S. country charts with his rendition, entitled "You Are Always on My Mind," from the album Let the Night Begin.

Willie Nelson version
The song was also recorded by Willie Nelson. Released in the spring of 1982, the song raced to number one on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Singles chart that May, spending two weeks atop and total of 21 weeks on the chart. The song also did very well on Top 40 radio, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and was Billboard's number one country song for 1982. This record was also big world-wide hit, charted in Ireland, Netherlands and Australia. It was also charted in United Kingdom, stayed 3 weeks on chart, but didn't broke Top 40 (peaking at No. 49).

Apart from its three Grammys (including Grammy Award for Song of the Year for the songwriters or Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for Nelson), "Always on My Mind" earned numerous other awards for Nelson and its songwriters, including the 1982 and 1983 Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" honors and the 1982 CMA Single of the Year.

Willie Nelson performed the number with Johnny Cash on the 1998 release of VH1 Storytellers: Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson. The song was featured on a December 2009 ASPCA commercial.

On the 10th July 1991, it was certified platinum by RIAA. In 2008, the single was inducted to the Grammy Hall Of Fame.

Pet Shop Boys version
In 1987, Pet Shop Boys performed a synthpop version of "Always on My Mind" on Love Me Tender, an ITV network television special commemorating the tenth anniversary of Presley's death, in which various popular contemporary acts performed cover versions of his hits. Their performance was so well-received that the duo decided to record the song and release it as a single. This version became the UK's Christmas number one single that year, beating "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, and topping the charts for four weeks in total. It is their best selling single in the official UK Singles Chart.

The Pet Shop Boys version introduces a harmonic variation not present in the original version. In the original the ending phrase "always on my mind" is sung to a IV-V7-I cadence (C-D7-G). The Pet Shop Boys extend this cadence by adding two further chords: C-D7-Gm7/B♭-C-G (i.e. a progression of IV-V7-i7b-IV-I).

In November 2004, The Daily Telegraph newspaper placed the version at number two in a list of the fifty greatest cover versions of all time.

In the video for Pet Shop Boys' version of "Always on My Mind" (an excerpt from their surreal music film It Couldn't Happen Here), Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are seated in the front of a taxi cab, when an odd passenger gets in, played by notable British actor Joss Ackland. At the end of the song, he gets out of the car, which drives away. Standing alone, he mutters: "You went away. It should make me feel better. But I don't know how I'm going to get through", which is part of the lyrics for another Pet Shop Boys track, "What Have I Done to Deserve This?".

In 1988, the duo rerecorded the song for their third studio LP, Introspective, combining it with an acid-house track called "In My House".

Use in television other media
The Willie Nelson version was featured in a British television advert for the Vauxhall Astra in 1989. This song is also featuring recent ads for Telcel, in Mexico.