Prince Almost Had A Song On Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Great Gatsby’ Soundtrack

Back in 2012, rumors were swirling around that legendary musician Prince – who died on April 21 at 57 – was working on the lead single for Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 remake of The Great Gatsby. It was a soundtrack that overshadowed the movie itself – Beyonce, Jack White, the xx, Lana Del Rey, and Florence + The Machine were just a few names featured on the bill. But when the album finally dropped, Prince’s song seemed to have fell through the cracks.

Last Saturday (April 23), the Australian filmmaker sat down with author Nelson George at a Tribeca Film Festival Q&A to reveal exactly what happened with the song.

“In one of the great sadnesses that I’ve been reminded of with the passing of Prince is that on Gatsby … I was working with Prince on a song for Gatsby and it was a reimagined version of a song he did with Martika called ‘Love… Thy Will Be Done’ and it was going to be a major piece in [the film],” the director said.

Luhrmann continued, “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 he couldn’t quite get it released. At that stage, I had to make another decision and so I went and I worked with Lana Del Rey to do the piece which ended up being that single.”

Baz and Prince have been long-time collaborators, having previously worked together on the song “When Doves Cry” for the 1996 movie Romeo + Juliet. 

“Working with him, he is what he appears to be: one of a kind,” Baz concluded. “There’s only one Prince, and it’s a great sadness that he’s no longer with us.”

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