Back in 2023, I read Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age. My thoughts about that one can be found here. At the end of my recommendation, I wondered if the ladies from the book might show up in another story. Sure enough, they do. This time it is in Kills Well With Others.
I knew the book was due out this year. While at a library visit with my kids, I saw it on the shelf and immediately checked it out. I read it in two days.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
Four women assassins, senior in status—and in age—sharpen their knives for another bloody good adventure in this riotous follow-up to the New York Times bestselling sensation Killers of a Certain Age.
After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready to tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.
Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, all of them connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster who rules her business empire with an iron fist and plays puppet master in international affairs. Naomi is convinced this criminal queen is bent upon revenge, killing off the agents who attempted to thwart her, and the aging quartet of killers is next.
Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster and her assassin. But their nemesis is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their experience and a whole lot of luck to get out of this mission alive.
I believe it was one of the first book’s reviewers who said it was “Golden Girls Meets James Bond.” I remembered that as I started to read the sequel. I wondered if I needed to go back and read the first one to catch up, but it wasn’t necessary. Once the story started, I recalled the characters pretty quickly.
There were a couple throwbacks to the first book, but you can still read this one without reading the first one and enjoy it. The sequel was a little less “James Bond” than the first book. Yes, there was still some sense of it, but the story was very character driven. I really enjoyed it.
Was it as good as the first book? It was close. At the end of the first book, I couldn’t wait to see if there was more to their story. This time around, I still felt that way, just not as much. It is not a bad sequel, and it is open ended so that a third book in the series is certainly possible.
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.”
Happy Heavenly birthday to Sir Sean Connery. Try not to be distracted by the voice of bra-less Shirley Bassey!
The last James Bond movie I saw starred Timothy Dalton. I think it was The Living Daylights, I might be wrong. I’ve honestly never seen a Bond film with Daniel Craig as 007. That being said, the music today comes from his movie Skyfall. The reason? Adele was born on this day in 1988.
Bond films are known for their amazing title songs. Live and Let Die from McCartney, Goldfinger from Shirley Bassey, and A View To a Kill from Duran Duran for example. So how did Adele get involved in the title song? Thanks to songfacts.com – here’s what happened.
Director Sam Mendes told Yahoo that at first, Adele wasn’t quite sure how to go about composing the movie theme. He explained: “She came in very early before we started shooting and her main concern was, ‘I write songs about myself, how can I make a ‘Bond’ song?’ My answer was, ‘Just write a personal song!'”
Adele teamed up with Paul Epworth to pen the sultry ballad. Said the singer: “I was a little hesitant at first to be involved with the theme song for Skyfall. There’s a lot of instant spotlight and pressure when it comes to a Bond song. But I fell in love with the script and Paul had some great ideas for the track and it ended up being a bit of a no-brainer to do it in the end. When we recorded the strings it was one of the proudest moments of my life.“
Paul Epworth said that finding the right sound for “Skyfall” was a particular challenge. “[The producers] said they wanted a dramatic ballad basically,” he explained. “With having read the script and trying to set the whole thing up in that context, where it happens in the film, there was really only one thing it could be. It was interesting to want to do something that was simultaneously dark and final, like a funeral, and to try and turn it into something that was not final. A sense of death and rebirth.”
After writing the piece of music that Epworth believed could be the tune for the Bond theme, the producer thought, “This could be the song.” Epworth told Hollywood.com that he then rang up Adele, “and said, ‘It might be too dark.’ And she said she loved it.” The pair immediately went into the studio and within 10 minutes she’d put down the first draft of the verse and chorus. “She had the lyrics ready in her head when she drove over. It was the most absurd thing. She’s fast, but it was really quite phenomenal,” he said.
Daniel Craig admitted to Yahoo that he found himself coming over a bit emotional when the song was first played to him: “I cried. From the opening bars I knew immediately, then the voice kicked in and it was exactly what I’d wanted from the beginning. It just got better and better because it fitted the movie. In fact the more of the movie we made, the more it fitted it.”
It was a top ten song in the US and it won Best Original Song at the 85th Academy Awards. It was the first Bond theme to win an Oscar.
Back in November, I did a feature I called “Share Your Nostalgia.” I asked some of my blogger friends to write up a piece that focused on their favorite toy from childhood. The response was positive and it was suggested to do another round. So this time around, I asked for them to tell us about their Favorite Childhood Book.
Their book could be something that was read to them by their parents or grandparents. It could also be a book that was read to them in school at story time. I also suggested that their book might be one that they read to their own children. I wanted each of them to have as much freedom as necessary.
Today’s guest blogger is responsible for my continuing this feature. Dave from A Sound Dayhosts Turntable Talk every month, which many of the participants and I take part in. It’s a wonderful music feature that we all enjoy taking part in. When I decided to try my feature, Dave was very supportive of the idea and felt it was worthy of doing again with a change in topic.
Dave has been one of those bloggers that I followed early on. His musical pieces are worth a read daily. Will his books have a musical theme to them? Let’s find out together…
Thanks Keith, for running this interesting feature and inviting me to be a part of it. Last time, we talked about toys we loved as a kid which brought me back a lot of nice memories, as it likely did to most of the readers I would bet. This time we’re remembering something that was as important as the toys to me growing up – books.
I feel fortunate I grew up in a household of readers, book-lovers. My Mom was a school teacher (although she pretty much gave that up to be a stay-at-home mom as my brother and I grew up) and loved books, read quite a bit. Even in her old age, she loved romance novels and Diana Galbadon fantasy books. She even read the hefty Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. My dad was more surprising to many. He dropped out of school at 14, more due to his family’s financial reasons than a disdain for education. He grew up speaking German but learned English when he came over here and taught himself a great deal reading. He built nice bookcases in our living room and filled them with books, fiction and non-fiction alike. He read anything from history epics to James Bond thrillers to ones of philosophy to books theorizing about extraterrestrials; probably where I got my fascination for UFOs from. There were series of books on foreign lands and even some novels that were considered on the “racy” side I’d eventually find out. He was walking proof that formal education isn’t necessarily equal to intelligence. Both of them had their flaws (we all do) but both loved reading and would often take me to the library or bookstores and for that I’m grateful.
Not surprisingly then, my parents got me reading pretty young. I can’t remember the exact dates or details, but most definitely I could read some basic things before I was near school age.
Like most kids my age, I would guess, the first books I remember having and learning to read (first having my mom read it and after awhile being able to myself) were various ones from the great, delightful Dr. Seuss. He had to have done more to promote literacy in young people than any other individual in the 1950s through ’70s. We had pretty much all of the “classic” titles in his collection; I’m thrilled when I go to my town supermarket now and see a big display featuring most of them, even in the same format and with the same covers I remember. Green Eggs & Ham was a real fave of mine, and I liked that rascally Cat in the Hat but of course the prize in that set was The Grinch. Of course I loved the TV version of it (still do) but it was amazingly fun to me back then to be able to read the words and see the still pictures Ted Geisel (aka, Dr Seuss) drew for them. I nearly picked those books collectively to feature but decided to go for something a little more unusual perhaps that were hugely important to me later, when I was … maybe eight to ten years old. The little Golden books, and in particular Weather : A Guide to Phenomena and Forecasts, and Birds : A Guide to Familiar American Birds. Both were small, pocket-sized ( just a shade smaller than a Reader’s Digest magazine as a reference point), had 160 pages and were published in the mid-’50s. And both let me develop a couple of interests I already had into real passions.
Ever since I was little, the changes in the weather, and especially storms always fascinated me. When the thunder rolled or snow blizzarded so hard you could barely see across the street, I ran to the window, not for cover. By the time I was about 10, I had a little weather set and kept records of the temperature, the barometer, the amount of rain we got day-by-day. I was quite the nerd apparently! But I loved that stuff and the Golden book was the one that made me understand it all. It described air masses, cold and warm fronts, how storms developed, tornadoes and hurricanes and how professionals measured it all and came up with forecasts. All explained with a lot of pictures and maps and in terms simple enough for a kid my age to understand, but not totally dumbed down. I swear that an average person who read through it twice might well have a better understanding of how weather works than a number of TV “weathermen” or “weatherwomen” I’ve seen on TV. It was a trusty reference book for me for years, probably until my parents split up and my Mom and I moved, when I was a teen. In no small part thanks to it, I even thought about becoming a meteorolgist. The amount of advanced schooling required for the degree and the probability of being sent to work in some remote northern locale ended up deterring me from that but to this day, I note the weather and try to see the weather maps online. I even took a training course a few years back offered by the Weather Service to be an informed weather spotter… basically if I see a wall cloud that’s rotating or nickel-sized hail falling, I can call into the weather office and report it and they won’t think I’m some total bozo without a clue.
The birds book had a similar effect on me, and I probably got it around the same age. I’d always loved nature, and back then our family often watched shows like Wild Kingdom . I was fascinated. When my Mom put out a bird feeder in the birch tree in our front yard, near the living room window, I soon became enthralled by the creatures. The color, the vibrancy, the variety… I’d spend hours at times in winter adoring the tiny, busy chickadees, admiring the occasional neon-red Cardinal that dropped by, seeing the goldfinches and being amazed how the dazzling yellow June ones and the more subdued olive-and-brown January ones were the same birds! All the while, I thought the bold, loud and ultra-colorful Blue Jays were just about the best. How great for me my favorite baseball team chose them as their name and symbol!
Anyway, when something unfamiliar showed up in the yard, I was always wondering what it was. What it ate, where it came from, that sort of thing. The Golden book helped me do that. Now, it was only 160 pages, so it probably only covered about 140 or so species; a small sampling of the over 700 types that inhabit the U.S. and Canada. But most of the ones I saw regularly were in there, or if not, were close to ones that were shown. Soon I knew a Slate-colored Junco was that little blackish sparrow eating seeds on the ground and those green-headed ducks I’d see on every pond and creek were Mallards. The book showed them, told a bit about them in a paragraph or two, and even had a little map to show where you should expect to see them. It also made me see birds that I wanted to see but hadn’t – man, who can look at a Pileated Woodpecker, the one the cartoonist based Woody on, the size of a crow with a flaming red crest on top of its head, and not be in awe? I would venture out to parks and woods to look for some of those magic creatures, and in time saw most of them. Soon of course, I wanted to know more and got a full field guide (as it happens, also a Golden one, but a much more scientific and complete one, over 400 pages with pretty much every bird on the continent shown) that could tell me all those species and how to tell them apart, but it was the little beginners one that got me to that point. I found one in a used store not many years ago, and of course bought it. Why wouldn’t I?
If I wasn’t nostalgic for my childhood, I wouldn’t be writing this for Keith… and if you weren’t for your own childhood, you wouldn’t be reading it.
My brother at those ages liked the Hardy Boys. Nothing wrong with that, but I guess I was always more fascinated by what really was than what could be in a pretend world. Thanks to the creators of that Golden series for helping me understand the basics and become even more fascinated with every bit I learned.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
I suppose it is when you are on the backside of 20, you begin to really understand how fast the years go by. I turned 26 in 1996 and I was told, “30 is just around the corner!” One co-worker told me that every thing starts to fall apart when you turn 30. I learned that he was right!
My first pick from 1996 has a Meatloaf vibe. “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that. The Gin Blossoms will “follow you down, but not that far.” Follow You Down was their first single from the “Congratulations…I’m Sorry” album. The album got its name because that was what people said to the band finally having hits (Hey, Jealousy & Found Out About You) after struggling to get one for years.
The song was a last minute addition to the album. “We were working on the record, and I’d come home at night to my hotel room, and I had those chords, and finished writing by the time we got home,” guitarist Jesse Valenzuela told songfacts.com. “We’d already finished the record, but I had this great song, so I demoed it up and I sent it to my main A&R man, David Andaly, the great David Andaly, and he said, ‘Why are you hiding this thing? Let’s put it on the record.’ So we went and recorded it right away.”
This is one of those songs that really stuck out to me on the radio. I loved the little harmony on “Anywhere you go.” It was another one of those songs that I would crank up the radi.
Follow You Down
Let it be known that I am not the biggest Celine Dion fan. However, I think Diane Warren is one of the best songwriters ever. Diane wrote the song Because You Loved Me for the movie Up Close & Personal.
From songfacts.com:
Diane Warren explained in the book Chicken Soup For the Soul: The Story Behind The Song how she honors her father in this song. Said Warren: “I saw the film with the director, Jon Avnet, on a Friday. I thought, ‘What would I want to hear at the end of the movie?’ Jon played me a tape of a gospel singer to give me a sense of what he was looking for – something really soulful.
I went into my office on Saturday, the following day, and the chorus came quickly. Michelle Pfeiffer’s character is thanking Robert Redford’s character for believing in her. The song became personal at the same time that it was telling the story of the film. Once I began, it became a way of thanking my dad for everything he did for me and the support he has always given me. He believed in me and my music from the time I was a little girl. When I was 15, he took me around to music publishers. Not only did he support my goals, he supported me financially while I was struggling in the beginning.
I had to wait for months to see if my song would be chosen to use in the film or if they would select one of the other four submissions. Thank goodness I had just started therapy! It got me through it.”
When I was DJing weddings, I would say that 8 out of 10 couples used it as their wedding song. Even Vince Gill and Amy Grant used it for their first dance. Lyrically, it is just spectacular.
On a Billboard podcast, Diane Warren said, “I feel like it was a leap in my craft. I felt that when I wrote that song, it was better than I was at the time, if that makes sense. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is probably my best song.’ There’s something lyrically about it.”
Because You Loved Me
My next pick was actually a hit back in 1973 for BW Stevenson. My Maria was written by Daniel Moore and Stevenson. It is basically Three Dog Night’s Shambala written about a woman.
In 1996, it was covered by Brooks and Dunn and it went straight to number one on the Country Chart. It was also named Country Song of the Year.
This version made Moore happy as it made him more money than any other version. He said, “The original sold 950,000 singles, Brooks & Dunn’s version has sold over 6 million. The original version got about 1,500,000 US radio performances. The Brooks & Dunn version is over 6,500,000 US radio performances and still going.”
It was one of Brooks and Dunn’s biggest hits, but it almost wasn’t recorded. Ronnie Dunn admitted he was reluctant to cut the song when the idea was first presented to him. “I thought, ‘Oh man, it’s just that falsetto thing,'” he remembered. “It’s a rock song, in my opinion. And I was very much wrong.”
Personally, I like the Brooks and Dunn version better than the original. I also have fond memories of a few of the country stations I played this one on.
My Maria
Next is a song that was never released on a Weird Al album. The song Spy Hard was recorded and used as the title song for the Leslie Neilsen movie of the same name.
Anyone who has seen a James Bond film knows the importance of the opening credits. They were all very unique and this song (and video) were a nod to those Bond intros. Spy Hard is unique in that it was recorded with an orchestra (which was conducted by Bill Conti of Rocky fame).
There is a Bond Urban legend that says that for the song Thunderball, Tom Jones held the song’s final note long enough to pass out; in this film, Yankovic holds it long enough to make his head explode. Originally, Yankovic had planned to loop the note to the required length, but in the studio, he discovered he was able to hold the note long enough that no looping was required. What a talent!
As for the movie itself? Let’s just stick with the song ….
Spy Hard
One of the first songs I remember playing when I started at my first country station was by a group called Ricochet. Many of the “older” songs I was playing were new to me at the time and that included Daddy’s Money.
This song was their second single and it was a number one hit for them. I could relate to the song in a way. Whenever the choir at church there, I often found myself staring a a pretty girl singer. The opening lyric:
Can’t concentrate on the preacher preaching My attention span done turned off I’m honed in on that angel singing Up there in the choir loft
I love the line, “My attention span done turned off!” The only thing that makes me chuckle more in this song is the fact that it goes out of the way to make sure you know that she is “a good bass fisher!” Now, what man doesn’t want that in a woman?!
This is on my list because I love singing along to it.
Daddy’s Money
I knew Alanis Morissette from the children’s comedy show You Can’t Do That On Television. When her Jagged Little Pill album was released I was struck by the deep and profound lyrics of many of the songs. Some of the lyrics shocked me, honestly.
At a live show, she explained how the song came about:
“When relationships get healthier and healthier we somehow equate that with not being as passionate or as sexy,” she explained. “I’ve kind of realized that it’s actually sexier when there’s less drama. It’s been better, and I never thought that that would be the case because of the whole clingy, overly dependent roller coaster that often times seemed very passionate and very sexy. And when I wrote ‘Head Over Feet’ about this particular person it was the first time that I actually had a glimpse of what it would be like to be in love and have it be something that was inducing of the heart palpitations, yet at the same time I could spend a couple minutes and actually not think about that person. It was very new to me.”
I was dating a gal in 1996 who was not as vocal about her feelings as me. I have always believed in letting people know how you feel about them. I always thought it was odd for me to say “I Love You” and not hear it back in return.
I had made a cassette tape of love songs for this gal and it had a huge variety of singers. She actually liked it a lot. She told me that she had a song that made her think of me and told me to listen to it. The song was Head Over Feet.
Knowing this gal like I did, it made perfect sense for her to use this song. She was exactly like the gal in this song and I was exactly like the guy. It wasn’t exactly the way I wanted her to express her emotions, but it worked.
Later on, she broke up with me by putting a note on my windshield. That even led me to some pretty dark times.
Head Over Feet
Some of my music blogger friends are familiar with the next song. I love it because it has that 60’s Beatles feel to it. It’s from the imaginary group called The Wonders. That Thing You Do becomes a hit for the group in the movie of the same name.
The song was written by Fountains of Wayne bass player, Adam Schlesinger. He said, “That was 1995 I think I first heard about it, or ’96, and I was just starting out. I had a publishing deal as a writer and they told me about this movie – they said that they were looking for something that sounds like early Beatles. And they knew that that was an era that I liked a lot. So I just took a shot at it and got very lucky and they used the song.”
Adam says he is better known for this song than Fountains of Wayne’s Stacy’s Mom.
I admit that this is a song that I play over a couple of times when it comes up on my music playlist. I just love this one.
That Thing You Do
One of the best interviews I’ve ever done was with Jewel. She promoting a country album when I chatted with her on the air, but I was very familiar with her music. Some folks wanted to write her off as a one hit wonder after her song Who Will Save Your Soul, but You Were Meant For Me stopped that!
Jewel wrote the song during the time she was homeless and living in her car. During that period she started having panic attacks and anxiety, and came up with her own way of coping, using mindfulness exercises to retrain her brain. In an interview with ABC radio, she said the line, “Dreams last for so long even after you’re gone” is about “the love of fantasy versus the actual reality.”
Songfacts.com says, “Jewel wrote the song during the time she was homeless and living in her car. During that period she started having panic attacks and anxiety, and came up with her own way of coping, using mindfulness exercises to retrain her brain. In an interview with ABC radio, she said the line, “Dreams last for so long even after you’re gone” is about “the love of fantasy versus the actual reality.”
At the time, this was the biggest-selling single in the history of Atlantic Records, and Jewel became the label’s first artist to grace the cover of TIME magazine (July 21, 1997). She is such an amazing singer and songwriter.
You Were Meant For Me
Beavis and Butthead were so successful that they got their own movie – Beavis and Butthead Do America. The soundtrack included songs from Ozzy Osbourne, White Zombie, No Doubt, Isaac Hayes, and AC/DC. It also included a cover of the Ohio Players’ song Love Rollercoaster by the Red Hot Chili Peppers!
While the original was a number one song, the Chili Peppers’ version didn’t do much in America. It did go Top 10 in the UK.
It’s not that I love this song, but I do like the more modern take on it by the RHCP. The video is kind of fun to watch too.
Love Rollercoaster
Remember the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces? Me either.
I Finally Found Someone was a hit for Barbra Streisand and Bryan Adams. Streisand initially wrote the love theme with veteran composer Marvin Hamlisch, but her producer, David Foster, envisioned it as a duet. That’s when Bryan Adams and his producer, Mutt Lange, were brought on to the project.
Barbra says, “Bryan played our track and heard me humming and fell in love with this little theme that I wrote, and then he and his producer Mutt Lange wrote a counter melody based on the track that I sent him. And they wrote the lyrics. So that’s how that happened.“
The single gave Streisand her first Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1981 and was a top ten hit. This was a song that I would often suggest to couples who did not want the most popular wedding songs (like the aforementioned Celine Dion). This was also a song that I mentioned to my wife as a possible “our song.”
Adams and Streisand have two very distinct voices, but they blend well together and this is really a fantastic and underrated love song.
I Finally Found Someone
This year was a difficult one for me to narrow down to ten songs for some reason, so I am sure I left off a few of your favorites. Tell me about yours in the comments.
Next week, we’ll look at 1997. I can see that this was another difficult year to pick ten songs as below the ten I have another nine artists names! The list does lean a bit alternative, but there is also some pop, country and swing!
I mentioned that my breakup of 1996 began some dark times. In 1997, there is a song that ties in way to closely with what I was doing in my personal life … More on that next week.
On this day in 1927, Sir Roger Moore was born. I was introduced to him by my mother, who loved watching James Bond movies. I am ashamed to admit that as a kid, Roger Moore was the only James Bond I knew. It was years later when I found out that Sean Connery was the previous 007!
Moore would play James Bond seven times in films. His first time was in Live and Let Die.
It was Paul McCartney who was approached to write the movie’s theme song for someone else to record. He agreed to write it only if his band Wings could perform it. He received a copy of the Ian Fleming novel. This was to give him an idea of what the film would be about. In 2010, Paul said:
“I got the book and it’s a very fast read. On the Sunday, I sat down and thought, OK, the hardest thing to do here is to work in that title. I mean, later I really pitied who had the job of writing Quantum Of Solace. So I thought, Live And Let Die, OK, really what they mean is live and let live and there’s the switch. So I came at it from the very obvious angle. I just thought, ‘When you were younger you used to say that, but now you say this.'”
Wings drummer, Denny Seiwell, remembers:
“We were up at the house one day and he had just read the book the night before, and he sat down at the piano and said, ‘James Bond… James Bond… da-da-dum!’, and he started screwing around at the piano. Within 10 minutes, he had that song written. It was awesome, really. Just to watch him get in there and write the song was really something I’ll remember the rest of my life.”
The song was voted the best Bond theme ever in a poll of BBC Radio 2 and 5 Live listeners conducted in 2012. The poll was done to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Dr. No.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
I turned 15 in 1985. It was sophomore year and I had moved up from the Freshman band to the Concert/Marching band. It is the year that consisted of many of my favorite songs that I recently posted about in this week’s Turntable Talk blog. It was also the year that I went on my first date and my first dance. How did the music of 1985 play into my life? Let’s find out…
My first pick is a soulful tribute to two amazing singers who passed away in 1984. It is also the only hit that the Commodores had after Lionel Richie left the group. I am talking, of course, about Nightshift.
The song is a tribute to singers Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. Marvin was 44 when he passed away, while Jackie was only 49. In 1974 the Righteous Brothers had a hit with Rock and Roll Heaven, where they picture fallen stars like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin forming a band in heaven. This was supposed to be a soul version where Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson are on heaven’s nightshift, playing some sweet sounds.
I love how the intro starts with that percussion lick and the smooth bass line that works its way to the vocal. It is such a funky, soulful and loving tribute to Marvin and Jackie – two legends!
Nightshift
As a sophomore, I ventured out of my comfort zone a bit and decided it was ok to go to high school dances. Mostly, the guys just hung out at a table and talked. However, after my first official date, I began actually wanting to go to dances with a female date. While I cannot remember for certain, I am pretty sure that one of my first dances ever with a girl was to Crazy For You by Madonna.
Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of hers. My brother, on the other hand, loved her! There are a few songs that I do like by her, and this is one of them. What I remember most about dancing to this song was that she was singing “crazy for you” and I wasn’t sure what kind of message that may or may not have been sending to my date. I was also thinking about making sure I was swaying the same way she was and NOT stepping on her toes. It had to be a very uncomfortable dance for her.
Fun Fact: Madonna reportedly only took one take to record this song.
This was recorded for the soundtrack to the wrestling film Vision Quest, which also featured a guest appearance by Madonna herself, who played a singer at a local restaurant. After the success of this song, the film was renamed Crazy For You in some European countries to capitalize on the song’s popularity.
Crazy For You
How does that saying go? Everything old is new again? I don’t know. What I do know is that Netflix is currently airing the 4th installment of the Beverly Hills Cop Franchise and I hear it is doing well. It was back in 1984 that Eddie Murphy first played Detroit Cop Axel Foley. The character’s name is what led to the title of my next song, Axel F.
Before the title was settled on, it went by a different name. During production of the movie, it known as the “Banana Theme,” as it was slated for a scene where Axel Foley shoves a banana in the tailpipe of police officers intending to pursue him. The composer was German musician Harold Faltermeyer and truly, this song was all him.
According to Wikipedia, he recorded the tune using five instruments: a Roland Jupite-8 provided the distinctive saw lead, a Moog modular synthesizer 15 provided the bass, a Roland JX-3P provided chord stab brasses, a Yamaha DX7 was used for the marimba sound, and a LinnDrum was used for drum programming. Faltermeyer played every single instrument.
He was also the musical director on Beverly Hills Cop and did the score for the film. The soundtrack went to #1 in the US and won a Grammy for Best Album Of Original Score Written For A Motion Picture Or A Television Special. The song topped out at #3.
We played this at a concert one year in band, and though it sounds pretty easy, it was a bit tougher than I anticipated. It may have been in a weird key. It was one of many fun numbers we played.
Axel F
There are some songs that when you hear them, you cannot help but feel happy. My next pick is one of those songs. I have rarely played this at a party or wedding where it didn’t cause people to just get up and dance.
Remember the feeling you got when you first found out that someone truly loved you? There was that feeling of joy that just overflows from you! You can feel that joy and excitement in the vocals by Katrina Leskanich in Walking on Sunshine. It just makes you feel good!
The wife of one of my second cousins threw him a birthday party I DJ’d. The song was on the “must play” list. I remember having a conversation about the song and she said that it was the kid of song that you should play the minute you wake up in the morning. She said that it would just set the mood for the day. She always seemed to be in good mood when I saw her, so maybe she did just that!
Songfacts says, The video got a lot of airplay on MTV. It shows the band hanging around London, with Katrina very colorful and bouncy, and her bandmates more subdued. She had to make her own sunshine, as there was none in London – it was a typically cloudy and cold day.
Katrina’s look was anti-glam, with tennis shoes and the kind of fashions you’d find at the mall. In interviews from this time, she often took shots at singers like Madonna and Pat Benatar for adopting more suggestive looks.
Teen boys didn’t seem to mind….
Take four major country superstars, all who are friends with each other, pitch them an old song and tell them they should record it together and you get one really neat song. That’s the basic story of how Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash became The Highwaymen.
Country legend Jimmy Webb wrote the song about a soul with incarnations in four different places in time and history: as a highwayman, a sailor, a construction worker on the Hoover Dam, and finally as a captain of a starship. Webb released his version in 1977, it was covered in 1979 by Glen Campbell, who took the song to Johnny Cash, who was recording with Nelson, Jennings and Kristofferson.
The story goes that the four were all together in Switzerland doing a television special and decided that they should do a project together. While the four were recording their first album, Johnny’s friend Marty Stuart played the song for Cash, saying it would be perfect for them. It had four verses, four souls, and four of them.
The song led to the name of their supergroup, their album, and of course, their first single. Each of the four verses was sung by a different performer: first Nelson as the highwayman, then Kristofferson as the sailor, then Jennings as the dam builder, and finally Cash as the starship captain. Webb later observed, “I don’t know how they decided who would take which verse, but having Johnny last was like having God singing your song.”
No personal story to go with this one, I just like it!
I am embarrassed to say that up until 1985, I had never seen a James Bond movie. I was familiar with the fact that Roger Moore played Bond. My mom would rent Bond films on occasion and also watch them on cable. Moore played a Bond-like version of himself in Cannonball Run in 1981, but I had never really seen him AS Bond.
So when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go to the show with him we saw A View to a Kill. It was actually neat to see this in the theaters. I had often seen the Bond movie intro being parodied, but to see it kick off the film and to hear the song was all new to me. I was grateful to be able to see it.
Knowing Duran Duran and some of their songs, I was surprised that they did the theme song. The story of how they got it is interesting. Songfacts says: “according to the bassist John Taylor, was that he approached the longtime Bond producer, Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, while extremely intoxicated when they were both at a party. He stated that he was a long time fan (Major Bond geek would be more accurate. An Aston Martin was said to be one of his first “rock star” purchases, and he frequently mentioned his Bond video collection in interviews) of the series, but the music for the last few movies had been mediocre. He then offered to have his band fix the problem and Broccoli took the idea under advisement.Being asked to perform the theme song for a James Bond movie is a great honor, but the requirement to include its title in the lyrics can be challenging. Just ask John Taylor. “To this day we are forever grateful that we didn’t get Quantum Of Solace,” he said.
It is the only theme from a Bond movie to hit #1 in America.
A View To A Kill
I’ve made it all the way to 1985 and have yet to feature a Prince song. Not that I don’t like him, he was a musical genius. I am still blown away by his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance and his Superbowl Halftime Show. He was a talent, no doubt. My only real connection to him was that we play Let’s Go Crazy in Marching Band one year.
However, I can connect this one to me because it was on my 15th birthday that Prince released Raspberry Beret. Prince originally recorded “Raspberry Beret” in 1982, but re-worked it with his newly re-formed Revolution backing band.
At the time this was released, Prince was under fire from Tipper Gore during the notorious PMRC witch hunt, which placed two of his songs on the list of the “filthy 15.” So this is one of the songs where Prince started making his lyrics more family friendly. But if you really listen closely, you know that Prince still slipped in a “filthy” reference.
Raspberry Beret
1985 was the year that one of my favorite movies was released – Back to the Future. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, I reference the movie a lot and have read my fair share of time travel novels. It is a masterpiece and I will always watch it when it is on.
When Marty realizes he’s going to be late for school and he leave’s Doc’s place on his skateboard, Huey Lewis and The News’ The Power of Love makes the perfect song to accompany the scene. How did Huey become involved?
The film’s director Robert Zemeckis wanted Lewis to do the song – Huey Lewis & the News were rising stars with a modern sound that worked well in the movie, which takes place in both 1955 and 1985. Lewis had never done film work and hesitated at first, since he didn’t want to write a song called “Back to the Future.” When Zemeckis told him that the song didn’t have to be about the movie, Lewis accepted the challenge.
All Back to the Future fans know that Lewis has an uncredited cameo in this movie. Lewis has an uncredited cameo in this scene, where he plays a teacher who is judging the auditions. An early scene in the film has Marty McFly and his band The Pinheads auditioning for the high school dance. Huey plays a teacher who is judging the auditions. The group plays the beginning of “The Power of Love,” but before Marty can sing a note, Lewis cuts them off, telling them, “I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud.”
The music video doesn’t contain scenes from the film, but does feature an appearance by Christopher Lloyd in character as Doc Brown. We see him pull up in the DeLorean outside of a club where Huey Lewis & the News are performing.
The Power of Love
Yesterday marked the 34th anniversary of the passing of Stevie Ray Vaughn. I debated posting one of his songs for Tune Tuesday, but opted for a more uplifting post.
I was late to the SRV party. I was introduced to him after he passed away. I marveled at his playing and his vocal abilities. I really fell in love with his music.
I wrote about this song before, probably for one of the Song Drafts we were doing. It is Stevie’s cover of the old Hank Ballard song, “Look at Little Sister.”
Look At Little Sister
My final pick is another fun song. It reminds me a lot of the Kinks Come Dancing (which I just wrote about for Max’s PowerPop blog) because of the sound of the opening keyboards.
The Dire Straits were coming off the success of Money For Nothing which really established the band on MTV and on Top 40 radio in America. The fourth single from their Brothers In Arms Album was Walk of Life.
Mark Knopfler wrote this song to celebrate the street buskers of London, hence the references to “Be-Bop-a-Lula” and “What’d I Say,” which were two standards that might be part of a singer’s repertoire in the mid-’80s. Before the lyrics kick in, Knopfler does a few “who-hoo”s, which help create a whimsical vibe. When he spoke with the BBC in 1989, he expressed some “woo-hoo” remorse. “There’s too many ‘woos’ at the beginning of ‘Walk of Life,'” he said. “I heard it on the radio the other day and thought, Oh my God! What was I doing that for?”
Walk of Life (US)
Walk of Life (UK)
What song defined 1985 for you?
Next week we’ll share some songs from 1986. As I look at the music from that year, there were some great music videos! The year will feature my high school class song, my first attempt at Karaoke – before there was Karaoke, and two fantastic cover songs!
On this day in 1981, the 12th James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, had its premier in London. It once again starred Roger Moore as Agent 007.
The theme song for the film was written by Bill Conti, who will be forever remembered for writing the theme to the Rocky Movies. When he wrote it he had originally thought about Dusty Springfield of Donna Summer to sing it. He felt that they fit into the “style” of the Bond films. The studio suggested Sheena Easton, who had just had a huge hit with “Morning Train.” Bill listened to her album and was not impressed, so he met with her. After that meeting, he decided to work with her on the song.
Believe it or not, the band Blondie was originally approached to write a title song for the film. The producers of the film rejected their song in favor of Conti’s song. (Blondie’s recording of a completely different song, also called “For Your Eyes Only”, appeared on their 1982 album The Hunter). Conti’s lyricist, Mick Leeson, had originally used the line “for your eyes only” as the final line of the song. That didn’t match up with the film’s title reveal in the opening credits, so the two rewrote the song with the phrase as the first line of the song.
Sheena Easton is the only artist (to date) to be seen singing the theme song to a Bond movie during its opening title. Her seductive appearance in these clips was, according to the star, Roger Moore, “sexier than any of the Bond girls.” Sheena, however, says that the filming process was very unglamorous. Anyone who has seen the credits, would argue that she looks amazing in the film.
The song was released as a single in June 1981, just a couple weeks prior to the movie’s release and it became a world wide hit for Easton. She was only 22 years old when she released “For Your Eyes Only,” making her the youngest person ever to perform a Bond song. She held that record until 2020 when 18-year-old Billie Eilish recorded the theme tune for No Time to Die.
Here are those opening credits …
For Your Eyes Only
For your eyes only, can see me through the night For your eyes only, I never need to hide You can see so much in me So much in me that’s new I never felt, until I looked at you
[Chorus] For your eyes only, only for you You see what no one else can see Now I’m breaking free For your eyes only, only for you The love I know you need in me The fantasy you freed in me Only for you, only for you
For your eyes only, the nights are never cold You really know me, that’s all I need to know Maybe I’m an open book Because I know you’re mine But you won’t need to read between the lines
[Chorus] For your eyes only, only for you You see what no one else can see Now I’m breaking free For your eyes only, only for you The passions that collide in me The wild abandoned side of me Only for you, for your eyes only
I was pleasantly surprised while reading this book. Admittedly, I was drawn in by the title. I looked it up on Goodreads and after reading about it, decided to give it a shot. Here was their synopisis:
Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that’s their secret weapon.
They’ve spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they’re sixty years old, four women friends can’t just retire – it’s kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller.
Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.
When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they’ve been marked for death.
Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They’re about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman–and a killer–of a certain age.
The reviews I read were mixed. Some loved it – others were disappointed. I enjoyed it. One reviewer called it “The Golden Girls Meet James Bond.” I thought that was a good description, although James was more of a spy on a mission as opposed to assassins on a mission. At the same time, there were quite a few characters that made me wonder, “Should they really trust that guy?”
It all came together nicely and I would totally read about these four ladies again. Perhaps there is another story for them in the future …
Today I finished The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. It was the Sherlock Holmes novel approved by the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I really enjoyed it. To me, it read much like one of Doyle’s Holmes stories. I would imagine that there has to be a bit of pressure for any author who takes up an iconic character like this. I think he did a really good job. He also has written three James Bond novels that I may need to check out.
It is funny how my mind pictured various versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as I read this book. There were times I pictures Holmes as Basil Rathbone and times I saw him as Benedict Cumberbatch. Then there were times I saw Watson as Martin Freeman or Nigel Bruce. Not that it really mattered, but there were instances where I saw the situations with specific versions of the characters. It is hard not to visualize them. (How can anyone read a Columbo book and NOT picture Peter Falk?!)
If you are a Sherlock Holmes fan, I don’t think you will be disappointed in this book. I recommend it. 4/5 stars.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, he has written a few books with a fictional version of himself working with a former policeman who is now helping the police. In a sense, it is a version of Dr. Watson and Holmes. The next installment of that series is on my “too read” stack.
Next up – a book I have been waiting to pick up for months. It is finally available. Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch have a new offering in their “conspiracy” series.
The First Conspiracy was about the plot to kill George Washington. The Lincoln Conspiracy was about a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln (years before he was assassinated). This one is about the plot to kill FDR, Stalin, and Churchill. I cannot wait to dive into this one.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 