Baz Luhrmamn’s soundtrack for 2013’s The Great Gatsby is a wonderful mélange of artists across various genres, ranging from Jack White, the xx, Beyoncé, to Florence + the Machine. One musician, though, was also poised to join F. Scott Fitzgerald’s musical posse: the Purple One himself.
In conversation with Nelson George during the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday, Luhrmann explained how he worked on a song for Gatsby with Prince, but it wound up never coming to fruition. “I was working with Prince on a song for Gatsby and it was a re-imagined version of a song he did with Martika called ‘Love Thy Will Be Done.’ It was going to be a major piece in [the film],†the director explained. “And we did work on it. He was in Australia touring and we did some work there. We did further work on it. In fact we worked on it a lot. And there just came a moment when … it’s a co-owned piece and [Prince] couldn’t quite get it released. And at that stage I had to make another decision.†Luhrmann — who previously worked with Prince on a rearranged “When Doves Cry†for Romeo + Juliet — ended up choosing Lana Del Rey’s haunting ‘Young and Beautiful’ as the album’s lead single instead.
What a shame. West Egg could’ve used a little more funk.