# Best Bond Song? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085 "2014-10-12T02:31:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/21 "2014-10-12T18:08:54Z")
Goldfinger followed by Nobody does it better and you only live twice. ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Rock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/art_rock/32/525_2.png) [@Art\_Rock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Art_Rock)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/22 "2014-10-12T18:20:37Z")
A view to a kill. Honourable mention for Live and let die, Nobody does it better, For your eyes only, Skyfall. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/23 "2014-10-12T18:22:41Z")
“Goldfinger” is _the_ one. “You Know My Name” is pretty awesome, too. Love “Thunderball” as well. “Live and Let Die” is a really good Paul McCartney song, but (apart from the ultra-cool instrumental break) a lousy Bond theme. “Ya know ya did, ya know ya did, ya know ya di-id…” Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/24 "2014-10-12T20:25:58Z")
**Live and Let Die** , IMO. Check out [this performance](http://youtu.be/G95gIBBchqQ) at the Super Bowl complete with fireworks. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/25 "2014-10-12T20:29:23Z")
If I want to listen to a ‘Bond tune’, it’s always the original from _Dr. No_. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/26 "2014-10-12T20:31:38Z")
As a bland middle-class honkey, I tend to prefer pop to jazz. My favorites are from the Moore era, “Moonraker” and “For Your Eyes Only”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/27 "2014-10-12T21:03:14Z")
Boy, does thjis thread merit a poll. The future Mrs. RickJay and I have debated this quite a lot, as she is a huge fan of Bond and Bond tunes. She goes more to the old school and voted for “Diamonds Are Forever.” As recent as it is, I’ve got to go for “Skyfall,” with “Live And Let Die” a close second and “Nobody Does It Better” in third. “Skyfall” is a terrific song that does a great job being a song on its own while incorporating Bond leitmotifs. “For Your Eyes Only” is a nice song but it’s not really… Bondish, ya know? Conversely, “Goldfinger” And “Thunderball” are almost TOO Bondish. Still they’re awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/28 "2014-10-12T21:53:14Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Seriously? What’s wrong with you people? > > OHMSS for both the score and for “We Have All The Time In The World” To be fair, Louis Armstrong’s “We Have All The Time In The World”, which is simultaneously fantastic and mournful and hopeful and heartbreaking, is not the title song and only appears about a third of the way into the film over a montage of Bond and Teresa ‘Tracy’ di Vicenzo falling in love. I personally think the entire soundtrack is one of John Barry’s best (not only of Bond films but of movies in general, and on par with his soundtrack for _Walkabout_), and is interesting that although it was his first experimental entry into combining electronic and symphonic music, it has been widely copied and homaged. His other scores are often the best things about the movies they underlay, especially in the case of _Moonraker_ and _Diamonds Are Forever_. Barry also extracted one of the very best performances out of Duran Duran, not by changing their sound but molding it into something other than bland Europop electronica, which seemed to inform their later musical stylings. (I swear “Ordinary World” sounds like something composed in collaboration with Barry.) He also managed to make A-ha sound…well, listenable. That feat may be the most impressive of all of his efforts in terms of relative performance. _Live and Let Die_ is a rocking song by McCartney and Wings, but not really Bond-ish. Curiously enough, it bears significant similarity to the song that people seem to hate most (at least of recent films), the Jack White/Alicia Keyes duo “Another Way to Die” from _Quantum of Solace_ in terms of the changing tempo and discordant chorus (although the version that appeared in the film was a badly cut, hobbled version compared to that released on the soundtrack album). I personally like the theme song (and the rest of the soundtrack) from _QoS_, but then I’m an unabashed White Stripes/Jack White fan, and think he is the best thing to happen to commercial rock since Scott Weyland decided to sober up and start spurting out shitty corpo-factory blandness. “You Know My Name” would have been a better theme of someone other than Chris Cornell singing it while gargling gravel. And while “Skyfall” harkened back to the classic Shirley Bassey-voiced songs, Adele is, frankly, no Shirley Bassey. She’s a good vocalist from any technical standpoint, but her music is pure radio-play-friendly lounge pop with no texture or memorable characteristics. I so very much wanted to like the theme to _Goldeneye_ as I think Tina Turner was enormously talented, but to be honest, it is so understated and uses so little of her impressive range I can barely remember how it goes. And yet, it is still by far the best of all the themes from the Brosnan Bond era. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/29 "2014-10-12T22:47:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > As recent as it is, I’ve got to go for “Skyfall,” with “Live And Let Die” a close second and “Nobody Does It Better” in third. “Skyfall” is a terrific song that does a great job being a song on its own while incorporating Bond leitmotifs. > > “For Your Eyes Only” is a nice song but it’s not really… Bondish, ya know? That’s funny. To my ear “for your eyes only” and " nobody does it better" are pretty similar. I would put them both in the softy Bond theme category. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/30 "2014-10-13T01:06:04Z")
I would not expect it to be among the most popular, but I am surprised _no one_ other than me has mentioned “The World is Not Enough”. [Just in case people have simply forgotten about it, I’ll add a link for anyone who wants to listen.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C5NLfYdZaE) It’s got a classic kind of a sound but it still rocks and feels fresh …and it’s even sung by a Shirley! (and she turns in a great vocal performance) ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/31 "2014-10-13T02:12:20Z")
“View to a Kill” followed by “Skyfall” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/32 "2014-10-13T02:56:28Z")
“You Only Live Twice” because it’s so good and “Thunderball” because it’s so stupid. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/33 "2014-10-13T02:57:26Z")
I think _Skyfall_ is completely horrible. But I do like _Live and Let Die_. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/34 "2014-10-13T03:59:47Z")
So is there somewhere with links to all the songs in one place? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/35 "2014-10-13T04:18:10Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > So is there somewhere with links to all the songs in one place? I don’t know of one spot with links that let you listen to the songs (but, hey, it’s the internet- I’m sure someone’s got a page for it), but for one spot with a _list_ of all the songs: [Here’s the Wiki Page for James Bond Music. It discusses film scores, theme songs, secondary featured songs, and unused songs.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_music#Title_themes) ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/36 "2014-10-13T04:49:14Z")
We did [a poll on this subject](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=573137&highlight=James+Bond) four years ago. ---
**Author:** ![MsKaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@MsKaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsKaren)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085/37 "2014-10-13T04:54:21Z")
Goldfinger. I’d pay good money for all the title sequences in one release. Not only the title songs but the amazing, increasingly over-the-top visuals with them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-bond-song/701085.md?page=1)