1963, he began performing it himself, and copyrighted it in Los Angeles as his own composition.

Roberts later regained the composing credit, but a share of the publishing income was retained by the Los Angeles publishing company. Other sources (including singer Pat Craig) claim that Roberts assigned the rights to the song to his friend Valenti while Valenti was in jail, in order to give him some income upon release. Rights to the song were administered from 1966 into the 2000s by the music publisher