Gerald Nelson - Songs I Wrote for Elvis

[Ed A]

This album is available on YouTube and Spotify. I saw this on the Glen Campbell topic and decided to give it a listen. Some more interesting songs that were pitched for Elvis' movies. Here is an interview with Gerald Nelson that I found on Google.


Meet Gerald Nelson, Mysterious Elvis Songwriter
Tue May 11, 2010 2:37 pm
Inspired by a rich discussion of "If I Were You," a 1970 Nashville recording, I found a bunch of interesting information about the songwriter, Gerald Nelson.

Gerald wrote mostly for Presley's movie soundtracks. Sadly, the ones that got in (unfortunately) were some of the worst ever released.

Thank you, Freddy and Lamar.

"If I Were You" would be Nelson's only non-soundtrack Elvis song.

GeraldNelsonSongsIWroteForElvis2006.jpg
Gerald Nelson Songs I Wrote for Elvis (Coda Masters, March 2006)

01. If I Were You
02. Sing You Children
03. The Love Machine
04. Yoga Is As Yoga Does
05. Easy Come, Easy Go
06. Lazy Love Affair
07. Let Me Tell You Something New
08. Long Vacation
09. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
10. That's Allright With Me
11. Clambake
12. Dancing Out of My Life
13. Danger Beware
14. Ferryboat From Dover
15. Double Trouble
16. Dominique My Bull
17. How Can I
18. I'll Take Love
19. The Chicken Scratch

I thought it might be fun to put together a CD of the original demonstration recordings of songs that I wrote for Elvis Presley. Some he recorded, some he didn’t. He was such a good friend and I respected his friendship so much that I never ask him to record any of my work. Lamar Fike or Freddy Beanstalk put those that he did in his hands. Usually they would send me a script and say: ”Write something for this movie”. For the most part that was either fun or insane.

Fun: “Dominique My Bull” I think that was for the “Stay Away Joe” film wherein he buys a bull to breed, the bull turns out to be gay and won’t perform that for which he was purchased. He gets the idea for he and his Indian girl friend to show the bull what to do! They didn’t use this song in the movie, perhaps today they might? Another fun write was “The Chicken Scratch”. Lots of laughter in the studio when I was trying to make the guitar sound like a chicken.

Insane: “Yoga Is As Yoga Does” Now how does one go about writing a song around that title? I thought that this scripted nonsense has to be a joke. It turned out to be the absolute worst Song I ever heard! This crazy composition was used in the “Easy Come Easy Go” movie along with two others that are on this CD, “Sing You Children” and “The Love Machine”. There were four songs in this movie. I wrote three of them. The best song of the four that I submitted was “Easy Come, Easy Go”, they didn’t use that one. Go figure.

The Elvis movie producers passed on a song “Lazy Love Affair”, for which film I forget. But the demo recording that you can hear on this CD, was later used in two movies: Miami Blue and Caged Fear.

He recorded “If I Were You” and put it in the “Love Letters” album. Oddly enough this song, even today, gets quite a bit of airplay and sales around the world. It’s the only non-movie song of mine that was ever submitted to him.

For those of you who like “tid-bits” here is an interesting one for you. A contemporary standard, “Tragedy”, was written by Fred Burch and me. The song has sold millions and millions of records and has been recorded by 20-25 different artists over the years. We wrote the song for Elvis!

Chet Atkins was Elvis’s producer at RCA at the time and I sent it to Chet for Elvis. Chet passed on the song. Years later Chet told me that he “missed on that one, but that he would make it up to me” He did. He recorded it in years to come by Charlie Rich, Floyd Cramer, and the Anita Kerr Singers. I didn’t include it in this collection because Paul McCartney later purchased the publishing, you know that Beatle boy, and it is too much trouble to get a license for use in a little project like this.

I hope you get some fun out of listening to some of this stuff.

Gerald Nelson

[collinjames44]

I've been able to find out via this forum and others what films/albums most of the demos were submitted for, but there are a few that I'm still unsure of. Does anyone know anything about the following songs from this album?

"Dancing Out of My Life"
"Danger Beware"
"How Can I"
"Lazy Love Affair"
"Let Me Tell You Something New"
"Long Vacation"
"That's Alright With Me"

[John]

I've been able to find out via this forum and others what films/albums most of the demos were submitted for, but there are a few that I'm still unsure of. Does anyone know anything about the following songs from this album?

"Dancing Out of My Life"
"Danger Beware"
"How Can I"
"Lazy Love Affair"
"Let Me Tell You Something New"
"Long Vacation"
"That's Alright With Me"

It's a long time since I listened to the album. No clue in the lyrics? Col Snow, do you know?

[colonel snow]

Deleted due to doubts about the information .

colonel snow

[kevanbudd]

Gerald Nelson Songs I Wrote for Elvis (Coda Masters, March 2006)

01. If I Were You
02. Sing You Children
03. The Love Machine
04. Yoga Is As Yoga Does
05. Easy Come, Easy Go
06. Lazy Love Affair
07. Let Me Tell You Something New (submitted with - 'I just thought you'd like to know')
08. Long Vacation
09. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained (for 'Clambake')
10. That's Allright With Me
11. Clambake
12. Dancing Out of My Life
13. Danger Beware
14. Ferryboat From Dover
15. Double Trouble
16. Dominique My Bull
17. How Can I
18. I'll Take Love
19. The Chicken Scratch

Additional songs submitted by Gerald Nelson to Elvis -

20. Why didn't I tell her (G Nelson and F Burch)
21. There's no place to go but up (Gerald Nelson and Fred Burch)
22. I just thought you'd like to know (Gerald Nelson)
23. Heartbreak city (Gerald Nelson)
24. There she goes (G Nelson and F Burch)

Kevan Budd

[colonel snow]

Thanks Kevan for the additions; do you know for which recording session and or movie these songs were selected?

colonel snow

[kevanbudd]

Thanks Kevan for the additions; do you know for which recording session and or movie these songs were selected?

colonel snow

That's all the info i have at this time.

Kevan Budd.