The artist who had their James Bond theme rejected: “It didn’t do anything for my career”
The music of James Bond is just as famous as any of the superspy’s fancy cars or improbable gadgets. As well as the iconic instrumental theme composed by Monty Norman and performed by John Barry, there are the bespoke songs for each individual film. From the early days of Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, and Matt Munro to more recent efforts from Adele, Chris Cornell, and Billie Eilish, landing a spot on the Bond soundtrack is a sign that you have made it as an artist.
There are plenty of famous musicians who had their Bond themes rejected over the years. Radiohead have tried a few times to serenade MI6’s finest. Other famous names to have been told ‘no’ by Eon include Johnny Cash, Blondie, Pulp, Alice Cooper, KD Lang, and Pet Shop Boys. Then there’s the curious case of Julie Rogers.
English singer Rogers is perhaps best-known for her 1964 song ‘The Wedding’, which reached number 3 in the UK charts and managed to crack the US top ten. The young singer’s success and beautiful booming voice caught the eye of the Bond producers, who were looking for someone to provide the song for their upcoming film, You Only Live Twice.
“When you are contracted to one recording company, they don’t like letting you out to sing for anybody else,” Rogers told Bond fansite MI6 in 2007. “But as I said, I was at the height of my recording [career] and it was never ever a demo record – it was never presented to me as a demo record. It was presented to me as ‘will you do the Bond theme’, I jumped at the chance, but I had to get special permission from Johnny Franz and Philips Records to let me do it.”
According to Rogers, she actually went into the studio and laid down a version of the song, backed by a full-sized orchestra. Unfortunately, she was about to receive some bad news. “The next thing I heard was they wanted Nancy Sinatra to sing the song as they needed more financial backing and there were politics involved. In the end they wanted a ‘bigger name’ – this is what I was told at the time. Since then I’ve heard different things, such as it was offered to Frank Sinatra, but he suggested that his daughter do it and of course nobody was going to argue with him… it didn’t do anything for my career.”
In the end, it was Nancy Sinatra who recorded the final version. It plays twice in the film, which was written by Roald Dahl of all people, once at the beginning and once at the end. The track peaked at number 11 in the UK charts, the highest position of any Bond song up to that point. It lives on through the Robbie Williams track ‘Millennium’, which samples its iconic string section and also became a massive hit three decades after the original’s release.
Losing out on the Bond gig coincided with a downturn in Rogers’ career. She would never again trouble the top ten and was eventually relegated to ‘where are they now?’ status. In 1992, a demo recording of Rogers’ version of ‘You Only Live Twice’ appeared on the compilation album, The Best of Bond… James Bond. After decades in the shadows, her work finally got to see the light of day. A happy ending to a rather sad story.
