Yesterday I chose a song from a movie soundtrack and I thought I would continue that here. There have been 21 (official) James Bond films to date (the 22nd is to be released in the fall). Never has there been a series of big blockbuster movies like James Bond, and as deserved by such a phenomenon, never has there been a series of movies with such big blockbuster songs. Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey, Thunderball by Tom Jones, Nobody Does it Better by Carly Simon and the list goes on and on.
If you are familiar with the list of James Bond Movie songs, then you probably already know which is my favorite. John Barry had been involved in writing almost all of the James Bond songs up to Diamonds are Forever and he also was the score composer for almost all of them. For the next movie he chose to take a hiatus, and George Martin was hired to compose and conduct the music for the next movie. This became the first time since Abbey Road that George Martin would work with Paul McCartney as Paul was asked to write the song for this movie, Live and Let Die.
It was not the most popular of the Bond songs (that title goes to A View to a Kill by Duran Duran) but it became a mainstay at all of the Wings concerts as well as many Paul McCartney shows in later years. It is also one of my favorite songs from Sir Paul from that era.
Here is a clip from a Wings concert which shows how big they did this song.
Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK2hKzZss5Y&hl=en]