Urban's Bond Themes Chart Rundown No.20 - 16
20. Never Say Never Again - Lani Hall (1983)
Before today I had no idea what the title song was for this film given that it's not an official Bond movie. I've never seen the film, never heard the song, don't own the soundtrack album or had any idea who Lani Hall was either. A quick look on YouTube and most of the videos seem to date from the early 80s and nothing else suggesting she was enjoying her 5 minutes of fame at the time she was asked to do this song.
As for the song itself, it kind of suffers from the same problems as Sheryl Crow's song, there's just very little to get excited about and it's not in the remotest part memorable at all. I noticed in the YouTube comments (Yes I went there) one guy suggested that Sade should have sung this and would have been perfect for it.
I can't help agreeing with him on that.
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19. Moonraker - Shirley Bassey (1979)
I hate to dis Shirl but she's kind of on autopilot for this one. This is the least memorable of her 3 Bond performances and I can prove it right now.
Go on, hum it to yourself right now.
See.... you can't remember it can you.
Bit of a shame that a Bond movie so important to me should have such a forgettable lame ballad as a theme song, oh well.
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18. The Living Daylights - A-ha (1987)
Not a big fan of this song, although it is a little more uptempo than I remember it being. It kind of floats along in an inoffensive way, but considering it was the mid 80s just think of what horrors we could have had instead of this. Phil Collins? Bonnie Tyler? Cher? Mister Mister? Huey Lewis & The News? KENNY F
UCKING LOGGINS!!!!! AGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
This could have been much much worse.
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17. The World Is Not Enough - Garbage (1999)
OK now we're getting to the good stuff.
When I first heard Garbage were doing the theme for this I was intrigued. I was a big fan of them at the time and I knew Shirley Manson had a good set of pipes on her, what I wondered what kind of Garbage would we get?
Would we get Garbage rockin' out?
Garbage doing their kinda electro thing ?
Or would it just a straight ballad?
Funnily enough it turned out to be none of those things. When it finally arrived it turned out to be a rather traditional Bond theme in the style of the 1960s John Barry penned ones with some 90s balls and attitude added to it to give it a bit of Oomph!!!
A really solid effort.
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16. We Have All The Time In The World (From On Her Majesty's Secret Service) - Louis Armstrong (1969)
For some reason I was under the impression that this song existed long before the movie, but no it was written by John Barry (With Hal David) for the movie. I wasn't alive in 1969, that's my excuse. Barry also said that this was his personal favourite of all the Bond songs he wrote because of the song itself and because he got to work with Louis Armstrong who he was a fan of. Although this isn't actually the theme tune to the movie, that being an instrumental piece written by John Barry which is still excellent and one of the finest scores he ever did.
Everybody has heard this song and it fits the movie perfectly with Bond getting married at the climax of the movie and see his wife gunned down straight after. I think it's the first Bond movie ever to end on a downer but one question.
WHY DID YOU NOT HAVE IT PLAY OVER THE END CREDITS??????
Hearing the James Bond theme after his wife's just been shot just feels wrong & too upbeat, this song would have set the mood perfectly.
Oh and check out Iggy Pop's version of this on David Arnold's Shaken & Stirred Bond theme tribute album, he does a cracking job of it. Apparently My Bloody Valentine & Tindersticks have covered it too but I've never heard it.
A UK survey said this was the 3rd most popular song played at weddings.
The song never charted when it was released originally but got to No 3 in the charts in the 1990s when used on a Guinness ad. It was the last single Armstrong ever recorded 2 years before his death in 1971.