The song was written by Winfield Scott and Otis Blackwell to suit Presley's rock and roll musical style.

Released on October 2, 1962, and published by Elvis Presley Music, the song became a commercial hit and received praise for its lyricism and melody.

[8] After penning a track about fishing, entitled "Coming in Loaded", as well as other material they disliked, the two gave up on writing other songs until they found inspiration in a returned piece of mail.

Blackwell and Scott decided to use those phrases as lyrics in a song about a failing relationship between "a spiteful woman and a heartbroken man".

[9] Within only nine months of its release, it was the use of the word "zone" that became an anachronism when the USPOD or United States Post Office Department (the forerunner of the United States Postal Service) replaced all zones in 1963 with the nationwide rollout of ZIP Codes, thus making the song seem dated before its time, although 60 plus years later it is less of a footnote and an accepted part of the song, assumed[by whom?]

The Jordanaires, Dudley Brooks, D. J. Fontana, and Scotty Moore were in the studio, and other instrumentation on the album was provided by Boots Randolph on saxophone, Ray Siegel on bass guitar, Barney Kessel and Tiny Timbrell on guitar, and Hal Blaine and Bernie Mattinson on specialty drums.

While watching Presley perform the track, Moore and Fontana felt that the "old magic" of the singer's earlier work had returned.

[13] According to Ace Collins in Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits, the track "recaptured the happy enthusiasm and unbridled joy" of the rock and roll music of the mid-1950s.

[14] NME said that "Return to Sender" and another song penned by Blackwell, Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" (1957), stand as "some of the most enduring classics in the rock and roll canon".

Ward concluded his review by saying that "Although 'Return To Sender' is not a huge artistic triumph, it's a great pop song that still sounds good to modern audiences".

Fans mailed envelopes franked with first-day issues of this stamp to fictitious addresses so that they would receive their letters back, marked with the words "return to sender".