Elvis Costello’s pick for the best James Bond theme “by 100 miles”
Music is as integral to James Bond and his world of womanising espionage as Aston Martins, borderline alcoholism, or Sean Connery’s impossibly hairy chest.
Over the years, a wealth of different artists have embraced the daunting task of creating a ‘Bond theme’ and, while all have their merits, a select few stand out among the rest, at least in the mind of Elvis Costello.
Although Costello made his first marks in the music industry as the bespectacled angry young man of the punk age, penning tracks attacking the societal status quo for DIY labels, his sensibilities were always a little more expansive than his safety-pin-wearing comrades. Even on his debut album, 1977’s My Aim Is True, the songwriter was already exploring a wealth of different sounds and songwriting influences, stretching from the vicious punk attitude of the Sex Pistols to the lush romanticism of Burt Bacharach.
On one hand, Bacharach’s unparalleled pop credentials and penchant for jazz experimentation didn’t really fit in with the grassroots abrasion of the punk revolution, but even the most ardent punk purist surely cannot deny the brilliance of Bacharach’s work. With his unparalleled compositional skill, the Kansas City songwriter made stars of everybody from Perry Como to Cilla Black, embracing a multitude of different sounds and styles along the way. Even today, over half a century on from his heyday, the sheer breadth of his discography has still yet to be matched.
So, it should come as no surprise that the similarly sonically diverse Elvis Costello has always held a certain appreciation for Mr Bacharach. In fact, the pair struck up a fairly long-running songwriting partnership during the 1990s, beginning with the track ‘God Give Me Strength’, arriving nearly two decades after Costello released his own version of the Bacharach classic ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’ on the Live Stiffs album.
That song, of course, was made a hit by the peroxide-blonde pop revolutionary Dusty Springfield, but it was Bacharach’s writing for film that really piqued Costello’s interest. “Of course, Burt wrote the score of What’s New Pussycat,” he once told The Washington Post. “And Casino Royale is a very camp film,” he added, referencing Bacharach’s often underappreciated work in the world of James Bond.
Dave Arnold handled the music for Daniel Craig’s inaugural appearance as Bond in Casino Royale in 2006, but that particular Ian Fleming novel was first translated onto the silver screen as a parody film back in 1967, starring David Niven and with an incredible score by Burt Bacharach.
“The music is easily the best thing about that film,” Costello accurately stated.
His appreciation for that score, however, goes much further than that: “I mean, it’s also the best song that anybody ever wrote for a Bond film by a hundred miles,” he declared, casting aside everybody from Paul McCartney to Dame Shirley Bassey, who have all written undeniably fantastic Bond themes in their time.
For Costello, the appeal of Bacharach’s Casino Royale seems to be its relative separation from the conventions of the Bond franchise. “It’s the only one that you can detach from the context,” he affirmed. “You can’t get up there and go, ‘I’m going to sing a great song that’s called ‘Thunderball.’” To be fair, you’d have a hard time singing Bacharach’s effort, too, given that it’s an instrumental theme.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to denounce Costello’s adoration of Bacharach’s Casino Royale. “It’s a great Bond theme,” the songwriter concluded, but even beyond the main theme, the composer’s work on that film also produced ‘The Look of Love’, one of Dusty Springfield’s most accomplished and incredible recordings which, in itself, could rival any other Bond theme from throughout the franchise’s history. It is a wonder he was never recruited by the Broccoli dynasty for any other Bond projects.
