Welcome to the first edition of Fanboy Fridays here on Jetpack Wonder Stories. Every Friday I'm going to try to write about something nerdy that I like, because I'm a huge dork and also like alliteration. Thus;
I have a special fondness for the James Bond franchise. When I was but a wee tween back around the turn of the century, the Connery/Moore/Dalton films (on glorious VHS) were a staple during summers at my cottage when we'd finally exhausted the supply of half-decent movies available at the video store in town. Around the same time I used to spend the summer making epic feature-length films in the backyard with my Dad's camcorder. When I re-watch them for giggles I can definitely see just how much the genre conventions and plotting of the 007 films influenced my young writerly mind.
And the songs. The songs. During this same period, my taste in music hadn't yet evolved into anything more than a protoplasmic ooze. The six cassettes I owned in the summer of 1999 were the original Broadway cast recording of The Buddy Holly Story, the Phantom Menace soundtrack, two greatest hits collections (the Mamas and the Papas and Louis Armstrong, respectively and bizarrely), and, of course, a two-cassette collection of the main title songs from the James Bond films. Thus, that world of blaring brass sections and wailing melodrama had a significant influence on my taste in, and love of, music. When a new 007 movie comes out, I'm almost as excited about there being a new opening titles sequence as I am about the film itself.
In honour of the just-released Skyfall (run, don't walk, to your local cinetorium and see it. Really.) and the fact that I've now published a blog on the internet and thus my opinion matters (I am definitely 100% qualified for this), I bring you my top double-oh-seven Bond Songs (see what I did there? Ha! Ha! Ha.)
In descending order!
#007. K.D. Lang - Surrender (Tomorrow Never Dies)
Surrender is an almost perfect Bond song, which is sad, because it was bumped to the end credits of Tomorrow Never Dies in favour of Sheryl Crowe's kinda-satisfactory theme tune. Penned by David Arnold (score composer for all the Brosnan and some of the Craig entries), it's full of brass and very blatantly recalls the classic John Barry themes from the Connery era.
#006. A-Ha - The Living Daylights
I'm a big New Wave fan and I've always been kinda confused as to where exactly that predilection came from. Recently I've decided that A-Ha's The Living Daylights is definitely (at least in part) to blame. I specifically remember playing Game Gear games with this song on my Walkman and feeling like a complete little nine-year-old badass.
#005. Adele - Skyfall
I wish I'd called this sooner, because Adele doing a Bond song makes pretty much every kind of sense. Her voice is a perfect successor to Shirley Bassey's work on Goldfinger and Skyfall is an impeccable song right from the opening horn thing.
#004. Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger
Speaking of which, this song is a classic in every sense of the word. Big, brassy, lyrics that are pretty much literally about the plot of the film - it's great. Also, I'm indebted to John Barry's Goldfinger soundtrack in general for being such a heavy influence on the excellent Janelle Monae.
#003 - Chris Cornell - You Know My Name (Casino Royale)
I hate Soundgarden. There is nothing at all interesting about them. That being said, Chris Cornell can hang out at my house and drink my beer for as long as he wants for writing this song. "Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" is one of my favourite lyrics from any Bond tune, and a go-to watchcry of mine if I ever need a shot in the arm of sticktoitiveness and/or pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstrapsitiveness.
#002. Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better (The Spy Who Loved Me)
I am not a big fan of the more ballad-y Bond theme tunes (Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, et cetera), but this song... is perhaps one of my favourite songs ever, even more than my #1 pick. Nobody Does It Better is an incredibly sexy song and is excellent even out of the context of being a Bond song. Just like...
#001. Paul McCartney & Wings - Live and Let Die
...this song. Nothing will top this song. Pretty much the first rock-and-roll James Bond theme, it is still, to this day, absolutely and utterly fantastic. The fact that it gets airplay outside of being a James Bond theme does it so much credit - it is objectively a fantastic song in its own right, and has been the best of influences on later songs in the series, from A View to a Kill to You Know My Name (which is heavily influenced by it.)
Honourable mentions go to Duran Duran's A View to a Kill for also being partially responsible for introducing me to New Wave, Tina Turner's Goldeneye for being written by Bono and the Edge (I love U2. Deal with it, internet), and Madonna's Die Another Day for being objectively one of the worst songs ever recorded and yet incredibly, insufferably catchy.
Oh, and this. You're welcome. See you next friday!
