It’s a beautiful, moody noir number in a series that was still trying to reinvent itself in a modern context. The Crow song, on top of working the film’s title into its finished product, is still a proper entry into the history of Bond songs, for sure.
Lang’s “Surrender” would have been the movie opening single for Pierce Brosnan’s second outing. If it wasn’t for an eleventh hour replacement of the titular theme, sung by Sheryl Crow, k.d. Many songs entered into the contest to become Tomorrow Never Dies’ theme, but one contender had the duties locked down so tight, you still hear its melodic signature throughout David Arnold’s debut score in the James Bond canon. We lost a superior tune when “This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave” did just that, and in a shorter time span. Sadly, when the band and the franchise producers clashed over creative direction, the Pet Shop Boys left, and a-Ha took on the duties to turn in “The Living Daylights.” While that theme song is still one of the top tier tunes from the whole canon of 007 themes, the Pet Shop Boys’ tune not only ties into the defection that kickstarts the film’s plot, after a hell of an opening, it’s also steeped in the sexy danger James Bond has been known for. And listening to what this song became in its final form, it would have been a hell of a follow-up to Duran Duran’s previous work on Roger Moore’s swan song, A View to a Kill. Here’s an interesting story: famed ‘80s duo the Pet Shop Boys started to cook up a tune that would eventually be turned into “This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave,” in service of Timothy Dalton’s debut The Living Daylights. Pet Shop Boys, The Living Daylights (1987) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” would be heard for quite some time. However, seeing as Thunderball was apparently a magnet for attracting lawsuits, and Shirley Bassey was upset her version wasn’t going to be used, neither version of “Mr. Were the course of events to have progressed as intended, Dionne Warwick’s longer version of the tune would have been used. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” with Bassey acting as the original vocalist, but with Warwick re-recording the tune due to scheduling conflicts. When it came time to cook up an opening number for Thunderball, there were two very different approaches at work before settling on Tom Jones’ banger of a theme the first of which saw Bond theme song royalty go head to head with another contemporary talent of her day.īoth Shirley Bassey and Dionne Warwick recorded the original theme tune, “Mr. Radiohead’s big double header for Spectre was predated by at least two other major examples of musical themes flying everywhere before a Bond film. Dionne Warwick/Shirley Bassey, Thunderball (1965)