I Feel So Bad

The original idea had been to pair the title track from Wild In The Country, scheduled to be released in June, with another song from the picture, “I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell.” This was the Colonel’s firm intention, but he was overruled by RCA executive Bill Bullock, who insisted that a track from Elvis’ March 1961 album session in Nashville (see next page) be substituted. Elvis chose “I Feel So Bad,” a blues rhumba he had loved in its original version, a Top 10 r&b success for Chuck Willis in 1954. The single sold just 600,000 copies, giving Colonel Parker one more opportunity to point out to various interested parties, perhaps with a certain degree of disingenuousness: “I don’t pick the tunes. Elvis does.”