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The Love Machine

Rating:
3.0 / 5

Words & Music: Gerald Nelson Fred Burch Chuck Taylor

Step right up to the love machine
You may get lucky when you zap a dream
Let the wheel go round, round and round
You may win that girl you've never found

She may be Suzy or Maybelline
She could be Cathy or Angeline
Let the wheel go round, round and round
Try your luck right now on the love machine

We're just a bunch of salty sailors
One thing on our mind
Takin' a chance on this machine
Maybe love we'll find
She maybe tall she maybe short
She may be wide
But Lady Luck stop that wheel
On 38-24-35
Step up, whose next in line
This love machine don't waste no time

Let the wheel go round, round and round
What will your fortune be on the love machine
All right

We're just a bunch of salty sailors
One thing on our mind
Takin' a chance on this machine
Maybe love we'll find
She maybe tall she maybe short
She may be wide
But Lady Luck stop that wheel
On 38-24-35
Step up, whose next in line
This love machine don't waste no time

Let the wheel go round and round and round
And round and round and round and round
What will your fortune be on the love machine

What will your fortune be on the love machine

Recordingdate: 1966/09/29, first released on: Easy Come, Easy Go (album)

Musicians

Musicians who contributed to the first recording of The Love Machine:

(guitar)
(guitar)
(guitar)
(bass)
(drums)
(drums)
(drums)
(drums)
(organ)
(harmonica)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(vocals)
(sax)
(sax)
(sax)
(trombone)
(trumpet)
(trumpet)
(harpsichord)

Availability

Find available albums with The Love Machine.

old shep wrote on April 18, 2008
An awful dated choice for a single when first released and still horrendous today
My boy, my boy wrote on June 03, 2008
For a movie song, I don't think it's that bad !...I even enjoy listening to it !
FLASHBOY wrote on June 03, 2008
Elvis Presley was not made for singing this kind of song cause he was the greatest of all entertainer. An awful song that does not match with Elvis talent.
Natha wrote on June 03, 2008
Given the setting of the musical type of movie it fits in according to the storyboard. However that is as far as it goes.
Steve V wrote on June 03, 2008
Listen to Elvis. Hear how bored he sounds. The outtakes are even worse. This is dreadful stuff for the guy that changed music only 10 years before.
Viva wrote on June 03, 2008
A fun track, I love to hear it. Not Grammy award material, but who cares? I have fond memories of hearing this for the first time, and seeing the King on TV singing this track, I loved it when I was a kid, and I don't see why I shouldn't love it now.
JerryNodak wrote on June 03, 2008
It's just a piece of mindless, situational movie fluff. It's certainly no great shakes, but taken as is I don't have a problem with it. Kind of enjoy it actually.
Dan wrote on June 03, 2008
I happen to like this song. Yes, mindless fun, but one of the snappier tunes from the film..
samcra wrote on June 03, 2008
It's an ok song I guess, but it certaintly doesn't rank up there with 'Old McDonald'.
theoldscudder wrote on June 03, 2008
'Innocent movie fluff' Thats just the problem. This was the King of Rock n Roll we are talking about. The guy who sang 'Trouble' in King Creole. Now in 1966 he was reduced to this dog crap while everyone else was making hipper & better records even Sinatra. Emabarassing lyrics (just read them!) and a bad vocal. Terrible all around.
Clambake67 wrote on June 03, 2008
I love this song and happens to be 1 of my favorite movie tunes! Funny song with some suggestive lyrics for a movie tune.
Rob Wanders wrote on July 07, 2008
I like this song; specially if you compare it to other moviesongs from that year.
dressingroomrehearsa wrote on July 07, 2008
elvis sings for grownup children too ¦-)
Ton Bruins wrote on July 07, 2008
Typical example of movie crap !!!
sitdown68 wrote on February 05, 2009
On 38-24-35 ??? Are these figures related to numbers on a gambling machine ?Never seen the movie. Well, I guess the better combination is 90-60-90 ;-) And qualitiywise: If the outtakes are even worse, the had no choice but to take the best of them for the Master.
Steve Morse wrote on February 05, 2009
Probably Elvis's worst single ever. Yes, Elvis sounds bored and it's hardly surprising. The song is garbage. It may fit the movie scene, but the movie scene is ridiculous, totally unbelievable and embarrassing to watch. I seldom put down the movie songs, but am pleased to make an exception here. Absolutely nothing redeems it.
dgirl wrote on February 05, 2009
You gotta wonder about the fans who give this song a pass. Its those fans who probably think this is better than anything The Beatles ever recorded simply because Elvis sang it. Fit the movie? A bunch of sailors singing about a roulette machine with women on it? Yes that scene was really necessary in the movie. Movie - total garbage. Song - ditto.
theoldscudder wrote on February 05, 2009
I think I would take Hard Days Night over any of the terrible mindless Elvis soundtracks. I was watching a TV show in which they compared a meal to Elvis career. Started out gangbusters went stedily downhill & died on the toilet. This crap tarnishes a great singer. This is why he is ridiculed today.How anyone can defend these stupid songs.?Why because they were written into a certain scene? Why not write better scenes & songs.?
derekd wrote on February 05, 2009
This is a recording by the 'Famous' Elvis Presley. Yet it only reached #38 in the Uk charts. Elvis's career was in free fall in 1967. Look at his other Uk chartings. Love Machine's followup was Long Legged Girl which only just made it to #49, then 2 none charting singles with There's Always Me & You Don't Know Me. Thankfully 1968 saw Elvis take more to do with recordings & releases. We had Guitar Man at #19, US Male at #15 which proved that Elvis could still bring out chart material. Soon '69 would bring us If I Can Dream, In the Gheto, Suspicious Minds etc and Love Machine was soon forgotten.
EspenK wrote on February 06, 2009
It's funny, Elvis is remarkably bored and uninspired on this track... And that is probably why I love it! Yup, this song is ranked high on my personal Elvis chart. He sounds "different" (read: bored) than the usual Elvis, and I think that is the reason it catched my attention immediately.
Deano1 wrote on February 25, 2010
For all of you movie critics who hate when Elvis sings to children or sings a sappy love song or sings a humorous song like "Who Needs Money" or "He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad", I understand what you are saying, but I disagree. With this song in this movie, I understand and agree 100%. This was a pointless scene in a poor movie and the song on record is not very enjoyable. Why did RCA release this as a single in the U.K.??? Most of the times the situational songs worked well in the movies and listening to them on record brings back a pleasant memory from the movie. On this one, it brings back perhaps the memory of the most sexist and dull movie performance of Elvis' movie career.
Monster wrote on April 27, 2010
At this point in his career Elvis may as well have asked his fans to pitch their song ideas to him rather than rely on the monkeys with typewriters who came up with rubbish like this. You can smell the bottom of the barrel off somgs like this and Yoga Is As oh God I can't even be bothered finishing the title off. Eugh!
shoesuedeblues wrote on April 27, 2010
Absolute '****! What the hell were RCA thinking of putting this out as a single?
TBG wrote on April 27, 2010
A lot of movie songs are being bashed just because it's a movie song. There's a lot of movie songs I like, but several of them are recorded on a sound stage making it sound bad. Songs from Double Trouble and Frankie and Johnny are a perfect example. I like several of the songs, but it's hard to enjoy the good songs because of the lousy sound on these recordings. This song however, "The Love Machine", deserves all the negative comments. There's not many songs that can compete with the bad lyrics, maybe "Britches" or "Song of The Shrimp". "The Love Machine" is an embarassing sequence to watch, I wonder what they had to do to Elvis to make him record this s**t. However I like "You Gotta Stop" from that movie. Again, bad soundwise, but had it been recorded in a studio with better arrangement it could have been a nice addition to any release.
Swen wrote on April 27, 2010
A "song" in no way worthy of "The King of Popular Music"!
derekd wrote on April 27, 2010
When Love Machine was released I remember thinking that future releases couldn't get any worse. I regret to say, bad as this release was, I was wrong, and we had Rca releasing singles that even failed to reach the Uk top 50. Thankfully '1968' arrived with Elvis re-inventing himself with recordings more fitting for the 'king'.
NONE000000 wrote on April 28, 2010
I think Elvis sells it, I really do. I know it's nowhere near the level of material that the great Elvis Presley should have been doing, it's not as good as what the Beatles and Bob Dylan were doing at the time, etc etc etc. But while I know we have to recognize these low points, in part to fully appreciate the brilliant comeback and return to form of 1968, I still get some enjoyment out of this track. I still remember trying to memorize the words so I could sing along to this when I was 10 or 11. I don't play it often now, and if it comes on and I am not alone, I skip it. But if it's just me and it pops up on my iPod... I still sing along loudly and have great time doing it!
RobIreland wrote on February 15, 2012
I like the alternate release of ths number. I like it only because of the era it was recorded, the mid to late sixties. i like Elvis" voice here and the music. BUT! I do have to say the lyrics are just down right cringe worthy ! Could have been a good song if it had been about something else and not women on the game advertised on a spinning wheal ! Jezzzz !
Pedro Nuno wrote on February 15, 2012
The are some moments where the bad catch your attention. For no particular reason, that happened to me with this song. It’s a bad song. But I like.
freedom101 wrote on February 16, 2012
As long as Elvis was doing great material I didn't mind him doing silly songs. I actually like "The Love Machine" but it will never match the great stuff he put out.
old shep wrote on March 21, 2012
I was lucky to be around in 56 when Elvis cared about his career. Regardless of it benig a film song or not, Elvis had the choice of rejecting this kind of stuff and putting his foot down.Absolute cack!
GEORGE (GK) wrote on March 21, 2012
fun movie song. Nothing more.
freedom101 wrote on March 22, 2012
I prefer "Love Machine" over "Yellow Submarine" and "Octopus' Garden" any day.
sugartummy wrote on May 20, 2013
I think that the songs written by Nelson/Burch (sing you children, love machine,yoga is) were on a publishing firm owned by Scotty Moore, Fernwood Records. That's why Elvis recorded them. As a favour to Scotty. Elvis did that before with "Girl next door went a'walking". It's a pretty lame song.
Gorse wrote on June 07, 2013
Good film fodder but erroneously released as a single in the UK. I don't squirm when I hear it, as I like the Presley voice and it has plenty of energy but I don't play it that often.
atomic powered poste wrote on August 27, 2018
Lousy sound, stupid lyrics, generic melody, bored singer ... it's terrible in every aspect. 1 star.
JerryNodak wrote on August 27, 2018
I'd rather listen to this than any tune by those annoying "Lads From Liverpool."
Milky White Way wrote on April 07, 2021
There is a difference between a musical soundtrack and a commercial track. I like many of Elvis movie songs and that includes this one. ECEG is one of my favourite mid sixties soundtracks, it has a unique sound and its fun. I’d rather listen to this on a loop all day than one minute of today’s tuneless rubbish. I also echo JerryNodak, this song is better IMO than what the Beatles were putting out. It’s all a matter of taste and my taste is Elvis and all his music.
The Hawk wrote on May 16, 2022
Sure, the lyrics are your typical mindless Elvis motion picture fluff, but musically it's one of the catchier tunes from Easy Come, Easy Go. I don't mind this one. Five stars for the music alone.
GBK42 wrote on September 23, 2022
Probably my favorite from Easy Come, Easy Go.
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