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behind-the-scenes of the making of the Another Way to Die music video
I Watch the Another
Way to Die video
The question “When was the last classic James Bond song?” is not, many would
argue, one designed to start a debate — unless you can call three or four
seconds of consideration followed by an emphatic answer a debate. Duran
Duran’s A View to a Kill (1985), co-written by the master, John Barry? Great
verse, yes; but the chorus is a screeching Simon Le Bon shocker, so let us
not linger there. Today’s Bond producers would like our answer to be “The
new one, for Quantum of Solace” — but Jack White and Alicia Keys’s Another
Way to Die (you can see why they steered clear of the film title, can’t
you?) is, to judge by fan sites and message boards, unlikely to join a roll
of honour that began in 1964 with Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger and arguably
ended when Carly Simon sang Nobody Does It Better in 1977. Purists would
contend that the sequence of greats concluded earlier, with 1973’s Live and
Let Die. A Wings song that ticked most of the Bond-song boxes — melodrama,
bombast, sonic explosions, a hint of cheesiness — it was so good, we forgave
Paul McCartney the grammatical howler “In this ever-changing world in which
we live in”.
The White/Keys collaboration continues the producers’ recent track record of
seeking to sex up the Bond brand with star names, both in the songwriting
and singing departments. Bono and the Edge writing GoldenEye (1995) for Tina
Turner to perform must have seem like a match made in marketing heaven, but
the song was a stinker, not least for Bono’s risible lyric “It’s a gold and
honey trap / That I’ve got for you tonight”. Garbage failed to breathe much
life into 1999’s The World Is Not Enough (Shirley Manson as a singing
torso-less robot in the video was far more memorable). Dear old Madonna
vocodered her way through Die Another Day in 2002. Her blustering and
beyond-bad contribution included the unforgettable “Sigmund Freud, analyse
this”, with the unwittingly hysterical implication that Madge had something
to teach the father of psychoanalysis. Sheryl Crow sounded barely awake on
1997’s woeful Tomorrow Never Dies, an example of another bizarre aspect of
the producers’ approach: they often choose the wrong piece of music. For
both The Living Daylights and Tomorrow Never Dies, they opted for inferior
songs to open the film (A-ha for the former, Crow in the latter case),
relegating much finer performances — the Pretenders’ If There Was a Man and
kd lang’s Surrender — to the closing credits.
The Garbage and kd lang tracks were both co-written by the film composer David
Arnold, who has been scoring Bond films since Tomorrow Never Dies. (Shaken
and Stirred, his 1997 album of Bond covers, with singers such as Jarvis
Cocker and Iggy Pop, attracted the attention of John Barry, who recommended
him to the film’s producers.) Arnold contends that any aspiring Bond-song
writer needs both to honour the canon — and its sonic staples of brass and
strings — and to throw away the rulebook, which he concedes can be a tricky
task. “I don’t think you can completely escape the history of these songs,”
he says. “Not only have many of them become standards, they have been around
as part of the British musical landscape for more than 40 years. It’s
something to embrace, rather than dismiss, but in doing that you immediately
draw comparisons with the greats.” As for the brass-and-strings trademarks,
he argues that “those elements are one of the things the public feel defines
the sound of a Bond song”.
Thus, White chucks a small arsenal of effects at what is essentially a very
weak melody, its one moment of excitement — a jagged and portentous bridge —
detumescing into a non-chorus that seems to mark the point where he ran out
of inspiration. Keys turns in a rock vocal of extraordinary and intriguing
power, but she can’t save the song. It’s by no means the worst Bond song —
that title would be claimed by Crow, Madonna, Rita Coolidge’s All Time High
(for Octopussy) or Sheena Easton’s wan and witless For Your Eyes Only — but
it is nowhere near as daring and inventive as you might expect from two such
bold artists. It’s as if White strode confidently into the recording studio,
only to be gripped by the same self-consciousness that has hampered other
Bond-song composers before him.
Arnold believes the question of public expectations imposing limitations on a
songwriter — and a song — is part and parcel of the whole Bond brand. “In
the films, there is an expectation that you will see action, adventure,
violence, girls, gadgets and guns,” he says. “If you don’t see them, you may
feel you’re not really watching a Bond film. And if the equivalent musical
elements are missing from the song, it isn’t considered a Bond song.” That
sounds creatively pretty stifling to me, but Arnold is too canny, proud or
diplomatic to say so.
He hints at the complex process arriving at a singer and a song can be. “I am
just part of a group of people who makes these decisions,” he says. “The
studio, the music department, the producers and the director all have a say.
I look at each film as like casting a role. Each film has a certain
identity, and part of the challenge is finding the right singer for that
film. I may love the idea of Björk or Alison Goldfrapp, for instance, but if
it doesn’t feel right for the film we’re making, it would be foolish to
choose an artist for the wrong reasons.”
Amy Winehouse was originally mooted to perform the lead song for Quantum of
Solace, co-writing it with the producer Mark Ronson. This was abandoned,
with the Bond team rumoured to have looked askance at her drug and drink
addiction. Then someone, somewhere, presumably in a meeting involving
discussions about budgets, marketing reach, demographics and “youth”,
suggested White and Keys. Will that suggestion pay off? Well, the song will
chart, certainly, so the cash registers will ping. Is it a match for
Goldfinger, We Have All the Time in the World, You Only Live Twice? Oh, I
think not.
Another Way to Die is out now on Sony BMG
I thought it was "But if this ever-changing world in which we're living,,,"
As far as I'm concerned, Madonna destroyed a 4 decade-long tradition of the instant classic Bond theme, although I think if they took DAD and reworked the arrangement radically they might have made it work.
Arthur, Watertown MA, USA
i have to say i loved licence to kill as a bond song and the living daylight rocks...i hope this theme song is a grower like the theme from casino royale
rob, london, england
Die Another Day is a brilliant song -- it's just not very Bond.
John, New York,
Interestingly, no mention of the typically OTT "Licence to Kill" by Gladys Knight, whose voice was a more perfect match for the strings and brass backing than Shirley Bassey's.
Simon, Viborg, Denmark
Instead of trying to create a hit record based on marketing research, EON should focus on creating a good BOND SONG that people will respond to for its evocation of the movie. They should listen to David Arnold more, and the bean counters less.
Paul Baack, Bloomingdale, Illinois , USA
I personally think it's not a bad song, but it could've been so much better, especially when you hear former albums by Keys and White apart. It could've been so much more interesting, the combination of those two. But this is just... dissapointing
Debora, Flushing, Netherlands
Aside from the fact that David Arnold has destroyed the Bond music, you lost me when you erroneously declared "For Your Eyes Only" and "All Time High" among the worst Bond songs.
Joseph, Winter Haven, USA