The failed ‘Rambo’ collaboration between Bob Dylan and Giorgio Moroder
Who is that running through the forest to the sound of 1980s synthesizers? That’s right: it’s Rambo. Awfully sweaty, isn’t he? Looks like a giant basted turkey – only with a machine gun and a belt of ammo wrapped around his torso. Soon, he’ll stumble upon a platoon of unsuspecting baddies and blow them all to hell, unleashing a spray of bullets before retreating into the foliage. Rambo isn’t exactly the kind of film franchise you’d expect to find Bob Dylan’s music, but according to Italian electro pioneer Giorgio Moroder, the singer-songwriter very nearly provided a song for the production.
By 1982, Moroder was already regarded as one of the most important producers on the scene, having bagged a hit with his 1977 Donna Summer collaboration ‘I Feel Love’. This new decade saw the electro-pioneer make a name for himself as a film composer, working on productions such as 1982’s Cat People and 1983’s Scarface. During an interview for The Guardian, Moroder explained Dylan’s near-involvement with Rambo: “It was actually Sylvester Stallone who asked me to ask him to sing a song for a Rambo movie. So I composed a song. I wanted him to write the lyrics, of course.”
But Moroder still needed to convince Dylan that the project was worth his time, which was much easier said than done. “I went to see him in Malibu, where he had a beautiful house,” he continued. “He listened to it about four times. I’m not sure if he didn’t like the music that much, or if he wasn’t interested because of the nature of the movie, which was totally anti-Russian, anti-communist. I think he didn’t feel like being involved with a movie such as Rambo. It was nice to meet him, and it could have worked, but it didn’t work out.”
By the end of the 1980s, Moroder himself was looking for other creative avenues that didn’t involve soundtracking action movies. After experimenting with art, computers and cars, that yearning to create music returned, at which point he started collaborating with the likes of David Guetta, Avicii and Nile Rodger’s group Chic. Today, Moroder is regarded as the godfather of EDM music and can lay claim to some of the most iconic film soundtracks of the 1980s. It’s just a shame the Dylan collaboration never came to pass. I suppose we’ll just have to use our imaginations. In my head, it’s somewhere between ‘Infidels’ and Joe Pizullo’s song ‘The Bridge’ for Rambo III. Only with better lyrics. Sorry, Joe.
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