There are many traditions in the James Bond franchise — an opening action set piece, a title sequence filled with sexually suggestive silhouettes, a one-off one-dimensional love interest, a megalomaniacal villain whose convoluted evil plan sends 007 around the world to exotic locations, etc. – but one of the biggest is the franchise’s use of theme songs. Each Bond movie has its own distinctive theme song written and performed by one of the biggest pop stars of the time. It’s become an honor for a musical artist to be approached by Eon Productions about composing a Bond theme. Here are The 5 Best (And 5 Worst) James Bond Theme Songs.
Best: Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” (from The Spy Who Loved Me)
Encapsulating the campy tone of the Roger Moore-starring Bond movies, Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” from The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best Bond themes ever written. The song had a hefty task — following up the breathtaking sight of Bond ski-jumping off a cliff and falling into snowy oblivion before deploying his Union Jack parachute — one of the most iconic shots in Bond history, maybe the most iconic. But Simon was up to the task, providing a song that was catchy, memorable, and focused on Bond’s treatment of women as opposed to his duties as a spy.
Worst: Madonna’s “Die Another Day” (from Die Another Day)
There is no fixed genre that a Bond theme song has to fall into. Chris Cornell even made his ‘90s grunge sound work for his Casino Royale theme. But Madonna chose to record a dance song that could be mistaken for any other dance song when she was hired for Die Another Day. Madonna was well past her prime at this point, and she didn’t even take the chance at a comeback seriously. In “Die Another Day,” the lyrics don’t make sense, the singer’s voice was auto-tuned beyond recognition, and the beat belongs in a tacky nightclub, not a Bond movie.
Best: Adele’s “Skyfall” (from Skyfall)
When it comes to the franchise’s theme songs, the Bond style is expected to override the artist’s creative voice. But why should that be the case? When Adele wrote the Oscar-winning theme song for Skyfall, she somehow managed to make it function as both a Bond theme and an Adele song.
Her distinctive musical style is all over the song, and if it wasn’t related to a Bond movie and she just released it as a single, no one would bat an eye. But it also suits the emotion of Bond’s near-death experience that led into Skyfall’s opening titles.
Worst: Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” (from Spectre)
Has Sam Smith ever seen a James Bond movie? From the sounds of his Bond theme “Writing’s on the Wall,” which managed to be even more mediocre than the movie itself, he hasn’t. Instead of using 007-related imagery in his lyrics or getting inside the head of everyone’s favorite gentleman spy, Sam Smith just wrote a Sam Smith song. Its vague lyrics have no relation to the admittedly weak plot of the movie. How a generic pop song with no connection to the movie it was written for won the Academy Award for Best Original Song will forever remain a mystery.
Best: Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die” (from Live and Let Die)
The way Paul McCartney saw it, writing the theme song for Live and Let Die was just a job. It was something that he was hired to do that he hashed out in an afternoon. The fact that it went on to be a timeless classic that was covered by dozens of artists for years to come and would be remembered as an all-time great Bond theme is a testament to McCartney’s genius. It’s nothing like the other Bond themes, and it’s nothing like the rest of Wings’ discography, either. It definitely falls into the rock genre, but it also has an operatic quality that gives it some artistic weight.
Worst: Lulu’s “The Man with the Golden Gun” (from The Man with the Golden Gun)
Bond composer John Barry himself has confessed that this is the Bond theme that he hates the most of all. The movie it was written for is pretty naff — from its villain’s third nipple to its stupid slide-whistle car stunt — and the theme song by Scottish singer Lulu doesn’t do it any favors. It was chosen over a submission by Alice Cooper that would’ve been a marginal improvement. The Bond movies have always had sexual overtones, but this song is pretty overtly about 007’s, well, golden gun: “His eye may be on you or me/Who will he bang?/We shall see.” Come on, Lulu.
Best: Nancy Sinatra’s “You Only Live Twice” (from You Only Live Twice)
The early Bond movie You Only Live Twice, which opened with 007 faking his death and travelling to Japan, featured a theme song performed by Nancy Sinatra. The movie itself isn’t anything particularly special, partly due to the novel it was based on having a flimsy plot (Roald Dahl, the writer who was tasked with adapting it for the screen, called it more of a travelogue than a novel), but its theme song is. Nancy Sinatra has a beautiful voice, with a knack for conveying an undertone of tragedy — see: “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” — and she does that wonderfully here.
Worst: A-ha’s “The Living Daylights” (from The Living Daylights)
The weird synthy sound of A-ha’s theme song for The Living Daylights doesn’t suit the dark shift in tone that the Bond films underwent when Timothy Dalton was cast. It’s also just a poor-sounding song, which could be attributed to A-ha butting heads with Bond composer John Barry.
The Pet Shop Boys reportedly recorded their own version of the theme song that was rejected by the producers, and while that doesn’t sound as exciting as, say, Johnny Cash or David Bowie providing a Bond theme, it’s hard to imagine a song being worse than A-ha’s “The Living Daylights.”
Best: Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger” (from Goldfinger)
Shirley Bassey’s theme song from Goldfinger was the one that set the tradition of hiring a contemporary pop star to write a theme song for each James Bond movie; a tradition that would last for more than 50 years. That’s probably why it also remains one of the best themes in the franchise’s history. Bassey broke a lot of new ground with “Goldfinger,” from catchy lyrics about the movie’s villain that instilled his presence in the viewers’ minds long before he faced Bond to a slick, seductive musical style that helped to set the unmistakable tone for the Bond franchise as a whole.
1. Worst: Tom Jones’ “Thunderball” (from Thunderball)
Tom Jones sounds like a natural fit for a Bond theme, but it didn’t work for one specific reason. One movie after Shirley Bassey pioneered the James Bond theme song with her Goldfinger track, the producers decided to hire a popular singer to write and record a new theme song for every 007 movie they made. But hot on the heels of Goldfinger, the producers hadn’t learned the right lessons yet. Instead of letting the artist write a theme in their own personal style, they got Jones to play it safe and pretty much copy Bassey’s theme song from Goldfinger.
