Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Three Tune Tuesday post.
As always, thanks to 
Earlier today I was talking to a student about James Bond films. He was a huge fan and wanted to hear my thoughts on ways to use the films to study English. At one point in the conversation we talked about the music. Ah... the music. Bond movies usually have pretty good music, having some of biggest names in the music industry when each movie comes around submitting ideas or trying to have their song featured.
So for today's #ttt post, I'd thought we'd look at some of my favorite 007 songs. This won't count towards my three picks, but I'll lead off with this version of the James Bond theme that someone made by combining the Dr No version and the Casino Royale version. The result is pretty great.
Anyway, with that out of the way, let's get into the music.
Oh, one more thing. To make this more interesting, I'm going to limit myself to only one song from each era. That is one theme song for each bond. Now obviously we have had more than three Bonds, so a few will get left out. Let's see how that goes!
The Sean Connery era of Bond is now larger than life. We've all seen them all multiple times and know not only the movies well but the songs as well. I think probably the most popular Connery film is Goldfinger and therefore that theme song is probably foremost in peoples' minds when they thing of this era. You Only Live Twice belted out by Nancy Sinatra (after her father, Frank, refused to do the song), might be the best sung. Nancy had a wonderful voice. But for my part, I think I'll pick...
Matt Monro - From Russia With Love
From Russia With Love is a great song. We don't actually hear the lyrics to the song when it plays at the beginning. Being only the second Bond film, they hadn't quite figured out the format, but it does pop up towards the end of the movie. Here it is in full.
Next.... Which Bond do I jump to.. We'll skip Lazenby—despite people saying he was a lousy Bond, I think he did ok and I think his movie (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) is one of the best, but the theme song for the single movie he was lacked lyrics. He was contracted to return for the next movie, by the way, but he quit in anger and so it went back to Connery. Anyway, next we move on to Roger Moore.
The Moore films had some iconic songs. Among them are Paul McCartney with Live and Let Die which is just iconic, then of course we have Carly Simon's amazing Nobody Does it Better, which many fans consider the best song in the entire 007 series. But for my pick, I'm going to go with the most 80s of the Moore songs...
Duran Duran - A View to a Kill
Ok, this wasn't the best Bond film. Walken's performance aside, the entire movie was just a little silly. And of course Moore was just way too old by this point, older even than his love interest's mother (which horrified him when he discovered that). But the song—the song is great! I just love how this song flows. And I mean, who doesn't love Duran Duran? Combine them with Bond and you almost automatically have a great song!
Come to think of it, might be a better pick here... Oh well, I made my choice!
Both of the songs for Dalton's two movies were ok. By the way, did you know he was due to resume being Bond in a third film, the one that would eventually become Goldeneye but a lawsuit that paused the making of that film for five years got in the way and, tired of waiting, he requested to be let go from the series.
I'm tempted to skip to Craig and to Adele's Skyfall which everyone loves. But instead I'm going to move onto the song for Pierce Brosnan’s first outing.
Tina Turner - Goldeneye
This movie marked a turning point. The original opening theme directer, Maurice Binder, was out and replaced by a new guy, and the results are obvious. While most openings for prior 007 movies were just naked women dancing around but not much else, from this movie we started to get more elaborate opening sequences. This was a great start to them, set to Tina Turner's amazing voice.
Bonus: Spectre - Radiohead
For my bonus pick, I want to go with this song. Radiohead was originally picked to write the song for Spectre. They submitted "Man of War", a previously written unreleased song, but it was rejected. They then wrote another song, titled "Spectre" but this was also rejected. The reasons seem mixed: some say it was rejected for being too dark, others say that Radiohead submitted it too late and so the producers had already moved on to Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall". Whatever the case may be, it's too bad, because it's a great song, better than the one they went with for the film. Let's listen:
(yes, someone edited the opening sequence to better match the song)
Agree/disagree? What would be your picks for best 007 songs?
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| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon. |