The songs of James Bond

James Bond is 50 years old. That means that Ian Fleming’s sexy and intrepid spy in the British secret service has been entertaining movie-goers for five decades. Within that time we have seen 21 James Bond movies. There have been six actors playing the part: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig with lots of seemingly indestructible villains and I realized only now, only 20 theme songs.

This is because the first film of the series, Dr. No in 1962 had no theme song. But of course, the score by John Barry set the tone for the music of all of the Bond movies to come, most notably with The James Bond Theme. The jazzy rock tune was composed by Monty Norman, arranged by Barry, who scored lots of Bond movies, and featured a most distinctive guitar part by Vic Flick.

To this day, I can think of no other composition that better captures the dangerous character of the martini-loving spy than this theme. Truth to tell, one constant for me while watching a Bond film is the anticipation of when will I hear this theme and what have they done to it now. The arrangements have varied over the years and one does not really know if it will be heard. Maybe during the credits or somewhere else in the picture. But no matter where or when, there is always this bit of a thrill when the music comes in.

The first Bond theme song came along in 1963 with From Russia With Love. Composed by Lionel Bart, who also did the musical Oliver, From Russia With Love was a big hit for the British balladeer Matt Monro and is now considered a classic. Since then every James Bond movie has always featured a theme song. There have been hits and misses but it is really quite a list that the franchise has built up over the years. And in keeping with the Bond tradition, the latest feature, Skyfall comes with a hit song of the same title recorded by the pop sensation Adele. She also composed the song along with Paul Epworth.

Here now is a list of all those who came singing theme songs for Bond in between 1962 Monro and 2012 Adele: Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey; Thunderball by Tom Jones; You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra; We Have All The Time In The World by Louis Armstrong from On His Majesty’s Secret Service; Diamonds Are Forever by Bassey again; Live And Let Die composed by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Wings; The Man With The Golden Gun by Lulu; Nobody Does It Better composed by Marvin Hamlisch and Carol Bayer-Sager performed by Carly Simon from The Spy Who Loved Me; Moonraker also by Bassey, the only artist who had the chance to sing three Bond themes.

For Your Eyes Only by Sheena Easton, who was the first theme song singer to also appear in the movie; All Time High by Rita Coolidge from Octopussy; A View To A Kill by British pop group Duran, Duran, who also wrote the song with John Barry; The Living Daylights by the Norwegian pop group A-Ha; License To Kill by American soul legend Gladys Knight; Goldeneye composed by Bono and The Edge of U2 and sang by Tina Turner; Tomorrow Never Dies by Sheryl Crowe which also featured an end theme, Surrender by k.d. lang; The World Is Not Enough by rock band Garbage; Die Another Day by Madonna, who also appeared in the movie; You Know My Name by Chris Cornell of Soundgarden from Casino Royale; and Another Way To Die by Jack White of White Stripes and Alicia Keys from Quantum of Solace.

Adele’s Skyfall is not included in the Skyfall soundtrack album. She must be saving it up for her next release. That is expected to take a long time coming given the fact that she is taking a break to play mommy to her first child these days. No matter, I say Adele can live comfortably on all the earnings and accolades that her CD 21 has won these past two years. Easy with hit singles like Rolling In The Deep, Someone Like You, Set Fire To The Rain and Rumor Has It.