Possible Inspiration
The song and the famous Elvis performance in the movie bear a remarkable resemblance to the theme and performance of a song called "Rock Around the Rockpile" from the movie The Girl Can't Help It, released one year earlier. In that performance, a villain played by Edmond O'Brien seeks to escape an assassination attempt by jumping on stage and singing the lyrics, "rock, rock, rock around the rockpile," while backed up by The Ray Anthony Band wearing striped inmate uniforms. O'Brien even includes some of the hip-swiveling and leg motions for which Elvis became famous. Reportedly, the producers had wanted Elvis for The Girl Can't Help It, but Elvis's manager Tom Parker had demanded too much money. Two uncredited composers on the film, Hugo Friedhofer and Lionel Newman, had also composed music for the Elvis classic movie, Love Me Tender, in the same year, 1956.
Read more about this topic: Jailhouse Rock (song)
Famous quotes containing the word inspiration:
“As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognise the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead, the civil code, and the day’s work. But now the two things seem irreconcilably parted.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)