Movie Music Monday – Goldfinger – Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian

Sir Sean Connery was born on this day in 1930. He has had so many wonderful roles in the movies. I loved him in The Untouchables, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Hunt for Red October (just to name a few).

Connery nailed it as Agent 007 – James Bond. He played Bond in 7 films: Dr. No, Never Say Never Again, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, You Only Live Twice, and Goldfinger. He was the tallest actor to portray the character.

Shirley Bassey was asked to sing the theme to the movie. On Shirley Bassey’s website, she says about Goldfinger: “John Barry wrote the music. We were touring in England at the time and he was conducting for me. One day he said, ‘There is this new song for the James Bond film Goldfinger and we’d like you to do it. I know your rule that you will never listen to a song unless there are words. There are no words, I must warn you – there’s only the music, which I have done. And we’re waiting on the lyric.’ And because we had such a wonderful relationship on our tour I said to John, ‘Well, I’ll listen to it. I’ll break my rule.’ And thank God I did, because the moment he played the music to me, I got goose pimples, and I told him, ‘I don’t care what the words are. I’ll do it.’ And fortunately the words were great.”

Songfacts.com says: John Barry worked long into the night on the music. According to an article in the London Times, the next morning over breakfast, he played the opening three notes to his flatmate at the time, Michael Caine. The actor said bluntly, “It’s ‘Moon River.'” Barry swiftly added the three-note brass line to disguise the similarity.

Bond producer Harry Saltzman hated this and he took a lot of convincing to use this as the film tune. John Barry explained in his interview with NPR that Saltzman called it “the worst song he’d ever heard in his life,” but because there was no time to change it, he had to live with it.

I can’t imagine there being a better song for the film. It wound up being Bassey’s biggest hit!

Vic Flick, who was one of the top session musicians in England in the 1960s, played guitar on this track. He told the Daily Mail that Shirley Bassey originally struggled with this song: “Barry wanted this long note held,” he recalled. “He said to do it again, and she said she couldn’t. But then there was a rustling noise – and suddenly this bra comes over the top of the vocal booth. And then Shirley really let it go.”