Tag: Live and Let Die

Movie Music Monday – Skyfall

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.

Happy 37th birthday to Adele!

Movie Music Monday – Live and Let Die

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.

Happy Heavenly Birthday, to Sir Roger Moore!