Why didn't Elvis Do A Bond Movie Song

christotheman · July 2009

Guys I have been wondering why Elvis never did a Bond Movie song, all the Bond movie's have had very big artist's doing it, how come Elvis never did one, I reckon he would've been a great Bond song.

mrbond · July 2009

Because he was crap:))

thenoisydrum · July 2009

By the time that the Bond films had got huge Elvis was no way near as big as he had been.
I believe there was a decline in his career as the the 60's progressed. I know he had a come back in '68 but really he was just a travelling caberet type act by this stage and into the 70's wasn't he. A fat sweaty cheese burger eater with no talent.

zig zag · July 2009

Good god,how can you say these things about the king of rock n roll.Before any one did anything Elvis did everything,and thats a fact!
As to why he never did a bond theme,I dont know,but there must be a good reason for it.

Barbel · July 2009

As with most of Col. Parker's decisions it's based on money.

From the moment of Elvis' signing with RCA in 1956, his songs were supplied by a publisher (at that point Hill & Range) willing to split the publishing 50/50 with him. Elvis would simply not sing a song unless his management received a share of the publishing and in some cases the songwriting royalties. This became very significant income (around $400,000 pa in the mid-60s), on top of Elvis' regular $1m per movie (say three a year) and high record sales.

This policy would be modified in later years, but there was no way Broccoli/EON/United Artists would agree to such terms.

Hardyboy · July 2009

Of course, how do we know that Broccoli and Saltzman would ever have wanted Elvis to do a Bond song, or that E himself wanted to do one? Frank Sinatra turned them down, though he did recommend his daughter; and Kate Bush was hotly pursued for Moonraker, but she too said no. It also seems to me that Elvis's style--old school rock 'n' roll, country, and gospel--did not fit the Bonds of the '60s, which were very jazzy or soft. Maybe it's just me, but I can't see Elvis and Bond as a good fit.

Loeffelholz · July 2009

mrbond wrote:

Because he was crap:))

8-)

Napoleon Plural · July 2009

It's not a great fit. Elvis tended to do those emotional ballads, or of course rock n roll. Musically, Bond belonged more to the 1950s pre rock n roll era for most of the 1960s, sort of Mack the Knife or crooner territory.

BTW The Spy Who Loved Me was the last movie Elvis ever saw, fact fans!

thesecretagent · July 2009

It's Now Or Never Say Never Again...

Sorry

ddddyyyy · July 2009

I agree with christotheman

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hegottheboot · July 2009

It just doesn't sound right. Johnny Cash did a version of Thunderball, and that didn't work either.

Grindelwald · July 2009

I can imagine him doing a song similar to WHATTITW :x

Barry Nelson · July 2009

As others have said, Elvis may not have been a good match for Bond; I can't imagine him singing any of the Bond themes that were made during his time. I also agree the Colonel may not have let E sing if he wasn't in the movie.

As for the comments that he was crap and he had no talent, pardon me if I laugh at that. He had one of all the time great singing voices, powerful with a great deal of range, and his stage performances were electrifying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lph03-jOkN0

Loeffelholz · July 2009

You're wasting your breath, Barry---although I agree with you 100%. Elvis---and the Beatles---get less proper respect with each succeeding generation. Their influence is considerable, and will continue to be felt long after some fourteen year-old kid rolls his eyes at the mention of their name X-(

It's hell getting old

)

blueman · July 2009

Loeffelholz wrote:

You're wasting your breath, Barry---although I agree with you 100%. Elvis---and the Beatles---get less proper respect with each succeeding generation. Their influence is considerable, and will continue to be felt long after some fourteen year-old kid rolls his eyes at the mention of their name X-(

It's hell getting old )

I have a lot of success ignoring that sort of thing, la la la la.

What about: Connery doing a Bond in '69 (not OHMSS), and Elvis signing the theme tune?

Loeffelholz · July 2009

You're getting older, like me---you just can't hear it anymore

Rick Roberts · July 2009

I really wish they got the chairman of the board:

Oh Frankie... :x

Rick Roberts · July 2009

Loeffelholz wrote:

You're wasting your breath, Barry---although I agree with you 100%. Elvis---and the Beatles---get less proper respect with each succeeding generation. Their influence is considerable, and will continue to be felt long after some fourteen year-old kid rolls his eyes at the mention of their name X-(

It's hell getting old )

True, but the people that came before them get alot less respect. Al Jolson for example, before your time you whippersnapper.

Barbel · July 2009

Barry Nelson wrote:

As others have said, Elvis may not have been a good match for Bond; I can't imagine him singing any of the Bond themes that were made during his time. I also agree the Colonel may not have let E sing if he wasn't in the movie.

As for the comments that he was crap and he had no talent, pardon me if I laugh at that. He had one of all the time great singing voices, powerful with a great deal of range, and his stage performances were electrifying.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Presley-Elvis-562/f/Elvis-vocal-range.htm

It ain't just the range, of course; it's basically all in the

...timing.

Grindelwald · July 2009

Just listen to live version Hurt , done just 2 months before he died.......hell I'm amazed he still could pull off a show at that period........respect !

Dan Same · July 2009

I don't think I can imagine Elvis singing any of the 60's themes. With one possible exception; TB. I can't imagine anyone but the great Shirley Bassey doing GF, while YOLT was a song which IMO was best sung by a woman, and was sung extremely well by Nancy Sinatra. That leaves TB, although even with that, I love the artist who performed the song. I think that Tom Jones was perfect for it. I think that the 70's would have been a better fit for Elvis as his coolness wasn't IMO appropiate for 60's Bond; in fact it was only with LALD, that I think the Bond producers selected an artist whom I would describe as 'cool.' Elvis was of course enormously cool, unlike Tom Jones.

)

BTW, Rick, I agree with you; Frank would have been perfect.

CL0USEAU · August 2009

if i may interject, i long wondered, myself, why Elvis never did a Bond song, and i came to the conclusion that, as Barbel suggested, Col. Parker's money-grubbing ways were probably largely to blame... Parker insisted that Elvis be paid a phenomenal price for every film he was in, and also demanded part ownership in the films, which i'm sure Broccoli et al would never go for... Parker's ways kept Elvis from accepting roles in Grease and West Side Story... here's an interesting article on the subject:

http://www.merseybeat.co.uk/articles-details.php?cat=Archives&id=122

for my part, i've taken it upon myself over the last year or so to pair up (mostly) fitting Elvis songs with Bond title sequences, just to get the feel of what might've been, if Col. Parker hadn't been such a stick in the mud... some are obviously not as good as others, but some are fairly decent, IMO... i've shared my videos elsewhere on the Net in the past, but i present the links here for anyone interested:

OP titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwwAMxg93zo
FRWL titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB_G17IG3_o
LALD titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awICgOQWD4c
YOLT titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhxtx7Wpb-o
GE titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca1xtD_-CEo
QoS titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro7CGcZiFFA
TB titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9ya6Upm9hk
TSWLM titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUV07iqSwho
OHMSS titles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtQJBM1XoNI (intended purely as spoof)

finally, i'll leave you with my latest video, which was very different from the rest in that it's not Elvis singing over the titles, but rather, it's a tribute video to James and Tracy (perhaps making up for the silliness of the OHMSS titles presented above?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FApqJ_Rz5Ow

Barbel · August 2009

Interesting choice of songs, Clouseau. The intro to "Surrender" does sound even more Bondian with the FRWL titles behind it, but my favourite of the batch has be "Edge Of Reality" (always one of The King's most underrated numbers anyway) over the QoS titles- knocks spots off the White effort.

CL0USEAU · August 2009

glad you liked it, Barbel... i agree that Edge of Reality was underrated... feel the same way about "Power of My Love" and "If You Talk in Your Sleep"... all three are great songs that everyone seems to forget/overlook...

do you think i over-edited the Surrender/FRWL video? i really had to mutilate both the track and (to a lesser extent) the video, to make it fit in a way that seemed logical to me... then again, most of the tracks required at least a little editing...

i'm perhaps most proud of my editing in the final video, because in addition to doing a bit more video editing than usual, i also created a mix for the Elvis track that won't be found anywhere else, even if you don't figure in the addition of the Bond theme at the end... really is a beautiful song, IMO...

Barbel · August 2009

It's a great song* but as Ernst Jorgenson says that arrangement of it really irritates. Shoot the guy with the triangle, please. Nice editing job, and I like the pun.

*Like most Leiber & Stoller songs- well, with the possible exception of "Three Corn Patches".... 8-)

chrisno1 · August 2009

Nice work Closeau -{
I agree with Barbels comments, and it must have taken you some time to track those songs down.
I have a shed load of Elvis stuff, but to be honest I never saw the King as having 007 potential.
And I don't think Col Parker (possibly the most short-sighted manager in pop history (also a leech and a man partly responsible for his own clients downfall)) wuld have allowed it.

to note:

I thought the Surrender - FRWL effort worked really well

also Talk in your Sleep - OP was good (nice to hear something other than Promised Land from that underrated '75 album!)

standout effort was Edge of Reality - QOS and to echo Barbel, this really is better than the White/Keyes rubbish we had to put up with. It's a little worrying that a '68 movie tune (Live a Little Love a Little, right?) works better than an '08 one, maybe the next set of songwriters could view YouTube before putting pen to paper just to see how it should be done!

HoneyRyder'sGirlfriend · August 2009

I think it was probably an economic thing on one hand and probably also related to Col. Tom Parker's immigration status.

1) Elvis, the biggest star in the world for over two decades, managed by a truly sharp businessman in Col. Parker, would've wanted a mint to do a song for a 007 film.

2) Col. Parker was actually an illegal immigrant, and if he left the USA to go to England with Elvis to record the song and do publicity for the film he might not have been able to get back in to the country.

Though, it would've been great if Elvis had done one, :x

CL0USEAU · August 2009

i'm not sure the immigration issue would have been that big of a deal... the Col. was helping Elvis plan a tour of Europe before he was drafted into the army, so presumably he wasn't worried about getting in and out of the US (either he had a plan, didn't think he needed one, or wasn't gonna go along - i vote for one of the first two options)...

that said, i'm not sure Elvis would've been required to go to England to record his Bond song, anyway, had he been invited to do one... surely just being Elvis would have given him the power to declare when and where he would record (or given the Col. that power, at least)... then again, who knows?

i agree, though, that the Col.'s greed is probably the biggest factor here... not that Elvis wasn't worth it - he was at one point in the 60s the highest paid actor in Hollywood, and by early 1961, he had already sold an un-heard-of 75 million records - so the Col. put quite the hefty price tag on his client, and Elvis missed out on several high-profile projects simply because the Col. didn't get as much money as he insisted on!

HoneyRyder'sGirlfriend · August 2009

Yeah, the Colonel didn't give anything away, that's for sure. Now, Priscilla doesn't either, so you still have to pay through the nose for Elvis.

LOL, here's a moment of horror for you: Elvis agrees to do a song for one of the Moore Bond films, maybe Moonraker or something, and insists on Priscilla getting the lead female role in exchange.

Rick Roberts · August 2009

HoneyRyder'sGirlfriend wrote:

LOL, here's a moment of horror for you: Elvis agrees to do a song for one of the Moore Bond films, maybe Moonraker or something, and insists on Priscilla getting the lead female role in exchange.

HoneyRyder'sGirlfriend · August 2009

Rick Roberts wrote:

HoneyRyder'sGirlfriend wrote:

LOL, here's a moment of horror for you: Elvis agrees to do a song for one of the Moore Bond films, maybe Moonraker or something, and insists on Priscilla getting the lead female role in exchange.

Sorry, Rick, didn't mean to scare you! :007)

Why didn't Elvis Do A Bond Movie Song

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