'Time of My Life' Songwriter Talks Patrick Swayze, Sells Demos for Cancer Fund

Musician Franke Previte was pushing 40 when he submitted a little ditty for a 1987 Patrick Swayze vehicle called 'Dirty Dancing.' The song, called '(I've Had) The Time of My Life,' it was the 150th tune considered for a dance sequence that would become iconic.

It was the last song taken into consideration. "They were getting ready to film to a Lionel Richie track which wasn't a bad song, it just wasn't their song," Previte tells PopEater on a call from his New Jersey home -- a home he says 'Time of My Life' essentially purchased. "So when I met Patrick Swayze at the Academy Awards, he said to me, 'We were bummed -- there was no camaraderie, there was a feeling the movie was gonna suck. Then we heard the song and we all freaked out.' "

Read on for Previte's memories of Swayze a year after his passing, and how the original 'Time of My Life' demos are set to rack up dollars for Patrick Swayze's Cancer Research Fund.

At this point, Previte's cell phone rings to the tune of '(I've Had) The Time of My Life.' Seriously. ("Had to do it," he says of the ringtone.)

"So anyway, Patrick was telling me how bummed they were and after they filmed they realized, 'Wow, what a tremendous ending with this song. This could actually be a pretty cool movie now.' "

The success of the film and the song were symbiotic, Previte contends, and Swayze held a special place in his heart for the original 'Time of My Life' and 'Hungry Eyes' demos, featuring Previte's own vocals -- they were, in fact, the demos Swayze and costar Jennifer Grey danced to while filming.

Now Previte is releasing the demos for digital purchase, with proceeds benefiting the Patrick Swayze Cancer Research Fund. "After Patrick's passing, I kept thinking to myself, There's such a connection between this demo and this movie," Previte says. "What can I do to kind of -- I don't want to sound corny here -- but give back a little bit?"

Sample the demo as sung by Franke Previte and Rachele Cappelli:


The song saw Previte, who had taken his band Franke and the Knockouts on tour with acts like Deep Purple and Fleetwood Mac, win an Oscar. "The impact had already shocked me; it was already beyond whatever I was dreaming about for my success. I was 40. I thought one day I'd get nominated maybe for a Grammy. To get an Academy Award and a Golden Globe was well beyond what I was thinking for myself."

'Time of My Life' changed Previte's life, he says, and affects him daily. "I was down to about a hundred bucks in my bank account. It gave me a chance not to worry about where my next project would come from. People say, 'Who manages you?' And I say, 'Oscar. Oscar opens a lot of doors for me.' "

Previte recalls Swayze's death, one year ago next week, as "very upsetting." The actor was just 57 when pancreatic cancer claimed his life.

"I had a chance to do some charity things with him, got to know him a little bit as a person, and just realized what a down to earth kind of guy he was," Previte says. "We could hang and shoot the breeze. Just a good guy. I had other Hollywood friends who knew him and said the same things. It struck me as, 'Why? Why does a guy like this, in the prime of his life, have to suffer like this and go through this?' It was just something I couldn't answer for myself and it's something that I thought about for a long time. That's what caused me to bring out these demos, because I know how much they meant to Patrick."

Swayze's costar Jennifer Grey will make the move this fall from 'Dirty Dancing' to 'Dancing With the Stars.' Does Previte think she has a decent shot? "She's got a dancer's chance," he says, laughing. "She picked it up pretty quickly with 'Dirty Dancing.' At the end of it, she was gettin' down."

Previte recently wrote a song for a stage version of 'Dirty Dancing,' titled 'Someone Like You,' available in the demo package released today. Also included are the original '(I've Had) The Time of My Life' and 'Hungry Eyes' demos and a Michael Lloyd remix of 'Time of My Life.' The demos are available here.