Despite all the rumors, Paul McCartney was always meant to sing Bond theme “Live And Let Die”
Archival contracts show that Paul McCartney wasn't going to be replaced by a female singer, as he previously indicated
Aux News Paul McCartney
While not all James Bond theme songs are created equal, there’s no difficulty in naming Paul McCartney and his band Wings’ rock ballad “Live And Let Die” as one of the best to soundtrack the spy film’s opening credits. The track even earned the franchise’s first of many Academy Award nominations for Best Song.
Granted, the story retold by McCartney and former Beatles producer George Martin throughout the years is that the English singer-songwriter was almost replaced on the track, as producer Harry Saltzman allegedly wanted previous Bond singer Shirley Bassey on the record. However, the fabled rock story seems to have been built on a bit of good old-fashioned miscommunication, as newly unearthed documents show that McCartney was always the first choice for the Roger Moore 007 feature, according to The Guardian.
The detective work comes from Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, two authors of the recently released The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-73, who discovered archived contracts from McCartney’s lawyer (and father-in-law) Lee Eastman and those representing Eon Productions.
According to the contracts, McCartney negotiated a fee of $15,000 for the creation of “Live And Let Die,” alongside his then-wife and Wings bandmate, Lynda. As well as that initial fee for the song, the former Beatles member was given the publishing rights (allotted him a nice bag of $50,000), including 50% of the song’s net profits.
“Paul McCartney has agreed to write the title song entitled Live and Let Die,” wrote Ron Kass, former U.S. head of the Beatles’ label Apple Records, to Saltzman in one of the uncovered documents. “He and his musical group Wings will perform the title song under the opening titles.”
This seems to disprove the decades-old story of Saltzman wanting to feature another singer on McCartney’s track, with Kozinn believing that the whole thing “was just a misunderstanding” between Martin, McCartney, and the film’s producers.
“Martin wouldn’t have been familiar with the terms of that contract, but Paul certainly would have,” said Kozinn. “One of the things we discovered is that, if it’s a good story, Paul will go with it. He didn’t have any reason to assume that anybody would see that contract.”
Oh, Paul! Looks like he’ll have to retire that story for now, or maybe he’ll have his own receipts published along with an interview on the subject in due time.
30 Comments
The Theme for Spy Hard should have been “Chicken Pot Pie”
Oh, no. Chicken Pot Pie wouldn’t have come with a great dental plan.
“Lynda”? Lynda McCyrtny?
As per usual, Linda gets slighted.
What do you call a dyg with wyngs?
This must be a good song as it even stood up to Axl Rose’s butchery.
Although, Shirley Bassey belting that out would have been pretty cool.
Yeah, but who was going to tell Paul McCartney in 1973 “No, you can’t sing your song!”
Maybe his wyfe, Lynda.
Linda McCartney, not Lynda.
Was Not Was
hello dad, i’m in jail
3rd best. Nobody does it betterA View to a KillLive and Let DieFor Your Eyes onlySkyfall
I’ve always been partial to “You Only Live Twice”.
Yep.Throw in Living Daylights, Goldfinger, Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies and that’s a solid top 10.
Other than the classic Bond runes , I always liked the Garbage : The world is not enough, and Chris Cornell’s :You know my name ones.
“Tomorrow Never Dies” is an underrated torch song for sure (and the movie gave us KD Lang’s “Surrender” and Pulp’s [rejected] “Tomorrow Never Lies”, which both rule). I am, however, shocked and appalled at the “The World Is Not Enough” erasure going on. It still bangs!
I love the film noir-ish piano in TND. Surrender is fucking legendary though.
The list still isn’t complete without this god-tier performance:
For Your Eyes Only? Oh, darling, darling, no. Us Scots can’t listen to that song or watch that film without cringing remembering Sheena Easton warbling about a commuter train. Get thee to a nunnery! I bet you’ve even got a teal jumpsuit, you filthpot…Myself? I’m torn between two classic Bond theme tunes, personally. All Time High by Rita Coolidge (mostly because my boyfriend sung this to me on my birthday once and I literally somersaulted in love with him and also because Rita wrote the coda to Layla, one of the all-time greatest rock songs)…And Nobody Does It Better by the one and only Carly Simon. I mean, Carly bloody Simon. The more modern Bond themes – apart from Skyfall – just don’t do it for me. Shall I tell you who should do the next theme? Goldfrapp. Just Goldfrapp.
“For Your Eyes only” is not good, for me.
Not one fucking Shirley Bassey track, you fucking heathenistic philistine?!?
I also particularly like the instrumental version of the title track that opens From Russia With Love. The Matt Monro version featured during the closing credits, though, sounds like second-rate Frank Sinatra.
You mean Frank Sinatra Jr.?
I always found it funny how Nobody Does it better is such a good Bond song while not sounding anything like a Bond song.
I thought Madonna’s Die Another Day was good Bond song. It felt like one of the more upbeat/danceable ones in the View To A Kill type of Bond song.
Please spare some thought for ‘All Time High’, one of my personal favorites. Though I really would have liked to have seen EON insisting on a song titled ‘Octopussy’.
Alice Cooper’s “The Man with The Golden Gun” is a better Bond song…even though it never appeared in a Bond movie. Drat!
I’m partial to his other spy movie theme song, myself:
I think I know what’s going on here. They didn’t want the real Paul to sing it, but the contract was for the replacement Paul (Faul?) to do it.
All cleared up.
“Hi, I’m Paul McCartney and I’ll be singing this song.”“Well, we had thought maybe…”“Hi, I’m Paul McCartney and I’ll be singing this song.”“Yessir. Tea sir?”