On Monday night I had the pleasure of seeing the new James Bond movie, Quantum Of Solace, a few days early, and I thought I’d talk about it. I’ve always considered myself a fan of the Bond movies, and whether it’s a good or bad thing, I’ve become something of an amateur expert over the years on the films, the books, the aura, etc. So I thought I’d do a few posts on the return of the franchise, but Commander Light suggested that the most interesting post would probably be one on the music of Bond, so for what could be the first of several posts dealing with the films, I’ll give you the six best Bond themes…

6. “Live And Let Die” by Paul McCartney & Wings.

This 1973 song was used as the introduction to the third official James Bond on film, Roger Moore (after Sean Connery and the criminally underrated George Lazenby), and with the 70s in full swing, it was time for a change along with the new leading man. To do this, the producers brought in George Martin, the Beatles’ producer, who then brought in McCartney to write the song (along with wife Linda), which was eventually nominated for an Oscar (but lost out to the theme from The Way We Were). The orchestral break in this song (written by Martin) is also used throughout the film diegetically, at point performed by a woman in a New Orleans club as a warning to Bond, and then later outside as part of a funeral dirge. And of course there’s all the covers of it, including Guns N’ Roses and certain well known glamorous trannies. This song is a weird standout on a James Bond playlist, but a fun one.

5. “You Only Live Twice” by Nancy Sinatra.

This song, written by John Barry (the man who pretty much championed how every Bond movie would sound musically up until the Brosnan years) with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, for the 5th Bond movie of the same name, has been covered by quite a few people, including Bjork, The Postmarks, and even Coldplay, which is just an interesting and very eclectic list. the opening 2 bars of the song are incredibly striking, lovely, and memorable, especially when you realize that they were sampled for Robbie William’s “Millennium.” This is just a lovely song, lush and dreamy, as it should be concerning it’s lyrical subject matter, and the soundtrack to You Only Live Twice is one of the few of the Bond films that I actually possess and much like the film and this title song, it’s perfect. You could put it on to fall asleep to or to have a nice, swinging party. Or maybe both, if you’re so inclined.

4. “The Living Daylights” by A-ha.

The Timothy Dalton movies are not highly regarded by most Bond purists, but they contained some excellent moments, and really are something of a blueprint for what you’r starting to see in the Daniel Craig years, both in style of storytelling and the level of anti-social brooding you’ll see in the main character.  I wonder if the Daniel Craig films, which now are critically acclaimed, will be seen as underappreciated as Dalton’s tenure with the role was. This film in particular, before we even get to the song, is easily one of my favorites of the pre-title sequences in all the Bond films. Take a gander:

As for the title song itself… it’s not “Take On Me,” but honestly, how can you not be digging this song. This is a pure pop gem, if you ask me. The credits list it as written by John Barry and a-ha’s guitarist Peter Waaktaar-Savoy, and in addition to the version used for the film, there’s apparently different versions of the song out there, some re-done by Barry and some re-done by the band themselves, since there appears to have been some arguing and fighting amongst the band the producer. The band claims that Barry wasn’t involved in the creative process at all and therefore shouldn’t have his name on the song and Barry says that they were insolent little children who kept trying to push their vision on him. Also, he apparently compared them to the Hitlerjugend in a newspaper interview. Awesome.

3. “Diamonds Are Forever” by Shirley Bassey.

You’ll see her mentioned again, but Shirley Bassey just seems to kind of go hand in hand with the Bond franchise, her music and especially her amazing voice becoming so synonymous with the series. Since this was Connery’s one off return to the official series after the producers showed him that they had no problem going a different way in lieu of paying him a fortune (see below), it was decided to go back to a classic: Shirely Bassey. But then producers hated the song, and the especially the innuendo (Bassey was told in the studio by John Barry to imagine that she was singing about a penis), but they kept it in anyways. The song was later covered by the Arctic Monkeys and sampled by Kanye West.

2. “We Have All The Time In The World” by Louis Armstrong.

As a jazz trumpeteer, the fantastic Mr. Armstrong wins the award for least likely performer of a Bond song, I believe, but this is a beautiful song, not the theme song (which is also good, but is an instrumental, which is odd but understandable), but more of the tragic love theme of the movie, and if you’ve never seen On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, then you absolutely need to. Staring one off Bond George Lazenby, it has one of the best, most meta of openings (remember that Lazenby was the first to follow Connery), one of the best and most classy Bond girls in Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas as the most swingin’ of villains, and has the character development that all the rest of the Bond actors wanted (Brosnan famously tried to campaign the producers to remake this film with him). The song went on to be covered by artists such as My Bloody Valentine and Iggy Pop and the title track was remixed by the Propellerheads.

1. “Goldfinger” by Shirley Bassey.

This song, sung by the ridiculously talented Bassey, and written by Bond’s super composer John Barry with lyrics by Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse, is basically what we think of when we think of a Bond theme. Lush and orchestral, something that you can easily imagine sung by a woman with an amazing voice in an evening dress in front of a full symphony before a rousing action thriller. This song is perfect in so many ways. Making heavy use of brass and metallic chimes, it’s loud and epic, boisterous in it’s power, and Bassey’s voice is completely unrestrained, and not surprisingly, it won her a gold record in America. So revered is her performance here that they asked her back for Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, and to record a song for Thunderball that was never used. She’s in her 70s, but Jesus, I wish they’d bring her back for the new films. Dare I even go so far as to say that it’s set the gold standard by which we measure all Bond songs?

Honorable mentions/runner ups include:

“A View To A Kill” by Duran Duran. This is easily one of my favorite of the Bond songs because of how perfectly it fits in with the film, which is such a subject of the 80s. Roger Moore is running around bedding Grace Jones and women who look like they could be his great-granddaughters and fighting of Christopher Walken as a nazi test tube baby hellbent on sinking Silicon Valley. It doesn’t get much better or crazier than than that. Oh, and did I mention that they have their final battle on the Golden Gate bridge after their zeppelin crashes into it? Pure sweaty genius.

“Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon from The Spy Who Loved Me. Do I even need to qualify this? It’s a super power ballad and was even called “the sexiest song that was ever written” by Thom Yorke. Makes me feel sad for the rest.

“The Look Of Love” by Dusty Springfield. The song, with music by Burt Bacharach and lyrics by Hal David, was written for the original 1967 James Bond film “spoof” Casino Royale, staring David Niven, William Holden, John Huston, Woody Allen, Orson Welles, and quite a few other stars (I could write about this movie forever, honestly). According to Wikipedia, the song has become synonymous with loung and easy listening music, ha ha. The song was originally intended to be just an instrumental, inspired by the lusty feelings Bacharach felt when looking at star Ursula Andress in an early cut of the movie. Andress, I hope somebody out there remembers, was the original gorgeous babe crawling out of the ocean for Bond’s eyes to feast on (before Halle Berry and later Craig himself occupied that role). Anyways, the song is lovely and you know we love us some Dusty here at Counterforce.

And just for Commander Light, I’ll end this with “The World Is Not Enough” by Garbage. The title of the song and film comes from a reference to the Bond family coat of arms from way back when, and Garbage was the perfect choice for a new artist to dabble in that classic Bond vibe. The song is not great, but it has a lovely lush vibe that floats on the pure sex waves of Shirley Manson herself. Tomorrow I plan to do a post on the songs that didn’t make the cut for whatever reason in Bond films and will probably use the original version of this song by the band Straw. (And, you’ll of course notice that the theme song from Quantum Of Solace is no where on this list, and not even close to it.) Until then…