Revisit Alice Cooper’s rejected James Bond theme song
Having a James Bond theme song is an honour that every artist would secretly enjoy, but only a select few are fortunate enough to say they are a chosen one. Like Alice Cooper, many have been close to earning the privilege only to have the opportunity seized at the last minute.
In 1973, Alice Cooper was on top of the world, and although he was a left-field pick for a Bond theme, his effort ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ is everything you’d want. However, the Broccoli family astonishingly turned down his creation and opted for an effort by Lulu instead. Even by the Scottish singer’s admission, she didn’t do the franchise justice, and said in 2017: “I think mine was probably the worst one ever – mine was not a great song”.
Cooper is in fine company regarding rejected Bond themes that are better than the originals. In 2017, Radiohead had their spellbinding audition for Spectre turned down in favour of Sam Smith’s forgettable effort. For Tomorrow Never Dies, Pulp were among 12 artists who made a soundtrack before the producers ultimately decided Sheryl Crow was their best bet.
Rather than deliver a traditional Alice Cooper song, he decided to tailor his craft to suit the franchise and carefully studied previous soundtracks before submitting his version. Unfortunately, Cooper spent too much time meticulously plotting the track and sent it over too late for them to consider.
“It actually came in a day too late,” Cooper said to The AV Club in 2011. “By the time [the producers] heard it, they’d already signed for Lulu’s song. I went, ‘You’re gonna take Lulu over this? ‘Cause it was perfect for The Man With the Golden Gun‘. It had helicopters, it had machine guns — it had the Pointers Sisters, Ronnie Spector and Liza Minnelli doing background vocals”.
He added: “We went to every single one of those John Barry albums to try and invent the perfect James Bond song, and even Christopher Lee, who played Scaramanga in the movie, said, ‘Oh, man, why did we take the Lulu song? This song is the one!’ [Laughs.] So, yeah, we lost out on that one, but I still put it on the album. I said, ‘I don’t care, I’m going to do a James Bond track no matter what'”.
Similarly to Radiohead’s take on a Bond theme, Cooper’s ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ was too spectacular to collect dust on the shelf, and he included the song on his album, Muscle of Love.
Listen to it below.
