The story behind the song
A Dog’s Life is a comedic song that Elvis recorded for his 1966 Paramount musical movie called Paradise, Hawaiian Style. The song was written by Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman, who worked together a lot on Elvis’s movie songs.
The background music for the song was recorded on
July 27, 1965, at Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California. The recording session included guitarists Scotty Moore and Charlie McCoy, and two drummers D.J. Fontana and Hal Blaine. Elvis recorded his singing part a week later on August 4, 1965. During that session, Elvis did six different takes of the song before he moved on to work on other movie songs like Datin and
Queenie Wahine’s Papaya. He came back later and finished A Dog’s Life by using Take 8 as the final version.
The song officially came out on June 1, 1966, on the Paradise, Hawaiian Style soundtrack album through RCA Records.
AT A GLANCE