7 Days 'Til 007: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"

A spectacular week that saw huge victories for the first African American president, several female Democratic Senate candidates (including the first Asian American woman elected to the Senate and a Missouri Senate candidate who actually understands female anatomy) and the movements to legalize weed and same-sex marriage concludes with something equally eagerly awaited, this time from the world of entertainment. It's the arrival of the well-received new 007 film Skyfall, which drops in the States tomorrow. This is the penultimate post in a seven-part series about standout vocal themes or instrumental pieces from the official 007 films.

It's hard to listen to John Barry's rousing instrumental opening title theme from On Her Majesty's Secret Service without going up to a mirror and pretending to aim a gun while kneeling, just like OHMSS star George Lazenby did in the film's gunbarrel sequence (the only Bond who kneeled in his gunbarrel). It's also hard to add lyrics to it that don't suck ass.

Try making up your own lyrics to the OHMSS main title theme sometime. Of course you're going to include the movie's cumbersome title in your made-up lyrics, but it won't sound right, even when you prolong the "Maj" in "Majesty's" to get the title to match Barry's nine-note brass melody. Just give up like Barry and his songwriter most likely did.

The theme was originally supposed to contain lyrics, but I guess Barry and the songwriter couldn't come up with anything that worked or would have been up to par with the chart hit Barry and his crew made out of "Goldfinger" and the solid Bond songs they crafted with "Thunderball" and "You Only Live Twice." So OHMSS became the first Bond movie since From Russia with Love to kick off with an instrumental during the opening titles (it remains the only post-From Russia with Love installment to do so). I like how the film opens that way. It adds to the whole "this isn't a typical Bond film" vibe of OHMSS, the last Bond film that treated the audience like grown-ups (until the series went back to basics in For Your Eyes Only after years of cartoonishness and juvenile antics).

The switch from Sean Connery to Lazenby must have inspired Barry to change up the Bond sound and use synths for the first time in the series. "That [synthy sound] and the single-mindedness of Barry's instrumental main title makes it one of the most revered of all the 007 scores among Bond aficionados," wrote Jeff Bond (no relation) in the liner notes for the 2002 expanded reissue of the OHMSS score.

Sixteen years after OHMSS, Barry made an interesting musical choice when he resurrected the OHMSS main title theme's synth riffs in his View to a Kill score, perhaps as both a shout-out to the OHMSS ski chase sequences that featured his main title theme (A View to a Kill was the first Bond film with a skiing sequence that Barry scored since OHMSS) and a nod to the 1985 film's Silicon Valley-related plot. The OHMSS and View to a Kill scores are two of my favorite scores in the series, and that's mostly due to the presence of this excellent OHMSS theme, the tune that can't be lyricized, no matter how hard you try.

7 Days 'Til 007: "A View to a Kill"

Each weekday until November 9, enjoy a post about a standout vocal theme or instrumental piece from the official Bond movies.

Duran Duran reportedly landed the gig of recording the View to a Kill theme song because of an encounter between then-Bond movie producer Albert Broccoli and Duran Duran bassist John Taylor, a fan of the Bond movies. He ran into Broccoli at a party and bluntly asked him, "When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?"

John Taylor is awesome.

Taylor's dissatisfaction with what I assume was Rita Coolidge's tepid and yacht-rock-y Octopussy theme "All Time High" resulted in my favorite vocal Bond theme and the only Bond theme that became a #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit in America. Chris Cornell and David Arnold's "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale is badass and adrenaline-pumping but not exactly sexy. Duran Duran and John Barry's "A View to a Kill" is badass, adrenaline-pumping and sexy as hell.

Taylor's pulsating bass work during "A View to a Kill" is reminiscent of the bass riffs throughout Barry's scores for On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever. If it seemed like Barry was sleepwalking through the Coolidge recording of "All Time High," he was reinvigorated by the collabo with Duran Duran, and that's evident during their song and throughout the View to a Kill score, which incorporates the song quite beautifully. Producer Mark Ronson, who almost recorded the Quantum of Solace theme with the late Amy Winehouse but had to let the project go because of Winehouse's drug problems at the time, gets a kick out of the score's use of the Duran Duran song as well.

"My favourite of [Barry's] film scores? I'd say View to a Kill--but not Duran Duran's version," wrote Ronson in NME. "I mean the original orchestral arrangement, which is just the most gorgeous thing."

AFOS: "Dance Into the Fire" playlist

1. John Barry & Orchestra, "James Bond Theme" (from Dr. No), The Best of Bond... James Bond, Capitol
2. John Barry, "Opening Titles," From Russia with Love, EMI
3. Shirley Bassey, "Main Title--Goldfinger," Goldfinger, EMI
4. Tom Jones, "Thunderball--Main Title," Thunderball, EMI/Capitol
5. Nancy Sinatra, "You Only Live Twice--Title Song," You Only Live Twice, EMI/Capitol
6. John Barry, "Main Theme--On Her Majesty's Secret Service," On Her Majesty's Secret Service, EMI/Capitol
7. Shirley Bassey, "Diamonds Are Forever (Main Title)," Diamonds Are Forever, EMI/Capitol
8. Paul McCartney & Wings, "Live and Let Die," The Best of Bond... James Bond, Capitol
9. Lulu, "Main Title--The Man with the Golden Gun," The Man with the Golden Gun, EMI/Capitol
10. Carly Simon, "Nobody Does It Better" (from The Spy Who Loved Me), The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
11. Shirley Bassey, "Moonraker," The Best of Bond... James Bond, Capitol
12. Sheena Easton, "For Your Eyes Only," The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
13. Rita Coolidge, "All Time High," Octopussy, Rykodisc
14. Duran Duran, "A View to a Kill," The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
15. a-ha, "The Living Daylights," The Living Daylights, Rykodisc
16. Gladys Knight, "Licence to Kill," Licence to Kill, MCA
17. Tina Turner, "GoldenEye," The Best of Bond... James Bond, Capitol
18. Sheryl Crow, "Tomorrow Never Dies," Tomorrow Never Dies: Music from the Motion Picture, A&M
19. Garbage, "The World Is Not Enough," The World Is Not Enough, Radioactive/MCA
20. Madonna, "Die Another Day," Die Another Day, Warner Bros.
21. Chris Cornell, "You Know My Name" (from Casino Royale), Carry On, Interscope
22. Jack White & Alicia Keys, "Another Way to Die," Quantum of Solace, J
23. k.d. lang, "Surrender," Tomorrow Never Dies: Music from the Motion Picture, A&M

*****

These bloggers have found the time to review each of the 22 official Bond opening title themes. They have way too much time on their hands:

Total Music Geek
Culture Kills
I Expect You to Die!

On a related note, here's one of my favorite '80s SNL sketches, a classic spoof starring Steve Martin as a cheapskate 007.