Today’s classic song of the day is by the King himself. It’s “A Little Less Conversation” and was not a huge hit when it was released as a single in September of 1968—it stalled at #69 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“A Little Less Conversation” was written by Mac Davis and Billy Strange for Elvis Presley to sing in his 1968 film, Live a Little, Love a Little. (That one co-starred Rudy Vallee, Dick Sargent, Michelle Carey, and Sterling Holloway; it was not one of his best.) Because it was a song for the film, the track was pretty much treated as a throwaway, recorded on the West Coast using studio musicians from the Wrecking Crew—including Al Casey on guitar, Larry Knechtel on bass, and Hal Blaine on that iconic drum part. Like most of Elvis’ movie tunes, “A Little Less Conversation” got cut quick and dirty in a single session—this one on March 7, 1968, at Western Recorders in Hollywood.
Why do we remember “A Little Less Conversation” today when it was kind of a flop back then? It all has to do with use of the song in the 2001 film Ocean’s Eleven and the subsequent remix of the song by Junkie XL (AKA Dutch musician Tom Holkenborg). The remix punched up the original mix considerably with a totally different rhythm backing and was a worldwide smash in 2002; it hit #1 in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. (This version peaked at only #50 in the U.S., for some unknown reason.)
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, “A Little Less Conversation” as it appeared in the movie Live a Little, Love a Little. Satisfy me, baby!
