In 1968, Elvis Presley recorded a song for the film Stay Away, Joe. He had high hopes for the movie and liked that the soundtrack would only feature three of his songs. Unfortunately, he found one of these songs so humiliating that he begged his record producer to ensure it never appeared on a record.

Elvis Presley cringed while recording 1 song

In Stay Away, Joe, Elvis starred as a Navajo rodeo rider. Per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick, Elvis hoped this film would provide him with “a more grown-up character.” He’d grown tired of his repertoire of saccharine musical roles and hoped to star in a weightier film. 

Elvis also liked that he only had to record three songs for the soundtrack. One of these songs utterly humiliated him, though. He was supposed to sing the song “Dominick” to a bull and he found this situation degrading. He also thought the lyrics, which included lines like “Moo, moo, move your little foot do!”, were beneath him.

Still, he dutifully recorded the song, though not happily. 

“God, Harry, I don’t want to record this,” he told RCA vice president Harry Jenkins. 

When he finished the session, Elvis made record producer Felton Jarvis promise to never release the song, even after his death.

“Promise me they won’t put this out,” he said. 

Jarvis agreed and kept his promise. “Dominick” did not become available on any record while either he or Elvis were alive. It appeared on the bootleg album Elvis’ Greatest S*** in 1982 and on the 1994 Kissin’ Cousins/Clambake/Stay Away, Joe compilation album.

Elvis Presley hated having to sing another song to an animal

The idea of singing to a bull might have chafed because Elvis previously sang to a basset hound. When he appeared on The Steve Allen Show in 1956, NBC wanted to avoid any controversy as a result of his dance moves. 

“There has been a demand that I cancel him from our show,” Allen said, per the book Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. “As of now he is still booked for July 1, but I have not come to a final decision on his appearance. If he does appear, you can rest assured that I will not allow him to do anything that will offend anyone.”

The network instructed Elvis to sing “Hound Dog” to the basset hound in order to keep him from moving while he sang. Elvis went through with it, but he thought of the moment as one of the most humiliating of his career.

He grew despondent because of his film career

Elvis had lofty ambitions for his film career, and they never came to fruition. The type of roles he had to take bothered him so greatly that he began to get sick.

“I cared so much until I became physically ill,” he said. “I would become violently ill. I’d get a temperature, something would happen to me … at a certain stage I had no say-so in it. I didn’t have final approval on the script, which meant that I couldn’t tell you, ‘This is not good for me.’ … I don’t think anyone was consciously trying to harm me. It was just Hollywood’s image of me was wrong, and I knew it, and I couldn’t say anything about it, couldn’t do anything about it.”

He acted in his final film in 1969.

“I was never indifferent, I was so concerned until that’s all I talked about,” he said. “It worried me sick, so I had to change it. Which I did.”