Does anybody know the story behind this? Both the song Scandalous and the batman Love theme share the same melody. Did Prince write the melody and composer Danny Elfman incorporated into the score? Or was it the other way around? I heard there was some tension between Prince and Elfman over the handling of the music for the movie so I doubt he would have been thrilled about having to use another artist's music.

I also read on wikipedia that the Batman album is specifically tied to the Batman franchise and Prince can't legally use the music for anything else. is this still true even over 25 years later?

I have the Danny Elfman score lying around here somewhere... From memory the "Batman Love Theme" is attributed to Elfman, Prince & John L. Nelson... so I suspect it's just Elfman incorporating parts of the melody of "Scandalous" into the movie score, with Prince's "Scandalous" probably being based on something his father contributed to.

Not sure about the legality questions, but I suspect there's some truth to this. This is supposedly why "Batdance" never turns up on any 'best of' compilations despite it being one of his biggest hits!

I believe the tension was more about how Elfman felt that his score got overlooked because the Prince album stole the attention (especially as most of the songs on the "Batman OST" aren't really even in the movie). Elfman worked very hard on the score himself and it's rather groundbreaking in many ways.

Cool. thanks for the info. I wonder how much colloboration went on with the theme. Did Prince send a bunch of tracks and Elfman pulled that particular idea for the love theme? Or was it done specifically to tie the soundtrack to the album? It really is a beautiful, simple melody that packs a lot of heartache and longing.