The James Bond theme that the producers “hated”
It’s been an established trait for decades that the latest James Bond movie will feature a theme song recorded by a popular artist, with the last three all winning an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Song’, but that wasn’t part of the long-running spy saga’s DNA from the very beginning.
It all traces back to Goldfinger, which is equally fitting and ironic given producer Harry Saltzman’s role. Matt Monro may have recorded ‘From Russia with Love’ for the film of the same name, but it was only an instrumental that played at the beginning, before the version with lyrics is first heard via the radio on-screen, prior to being played in full over the end credits.
That makes Shirley Bassey’s classic track the first genuine Bond theme in its truest form, but Saltzman wasn’t entirely convinced. He was certainly a fan of the source material, with his first time reading Goldfinger leading him to co-found the holding company Danjaq with Albert R. Broccoli, which would acquire the trademarks related to James Bond and serve as the parent company of Eon Productions.
According to legendary composer John Barry, when he heard Bassey’s rendition, he said, “The only reason this song is staying in the movie is because we don’t have time to redo it”. Anthony Newley was the first person to lay down vocals for ‘Goldfinger’ before Bassey was drafted for a recording session in August 1964, the month before the movie would premiere in the United Kingdom.
Despite Saltzman decrying it to Barry as “the worst song he’d ever heard in his life,” it ended up becoming not just indelibly linked to the Bond series but enduring as one of Bassey’s most popular tracks and biggest hits and setting a new standard for showstopping theme tunes recorded specifically to tie into a major motion picture.
It wouldn’t have anywhere near the same power or impact with anybody else singing it, as displayed by Newley’s underwhelming ‘Goldfinger’ finally being made available to the public as part of 1992’s The Best of Bond… James Bond compilation album. Saltzman may have detested it, but he was firmly in the minority, even if Bassey wasn’t entirely sure what she was actually singing about.
Barry admitted, per The Mirror, that the performer “didn’t know what the hell the song was about,” but that didn’t prevent it from becoming a classic, largely because “she sang it with such conviction that she convinced the rest of the world”.
If Saltzman had his way – or the time to figure out a way to land a song that appealed directly to his own tastes – then James Bond would have lost one of its most iconic musical accompaniments, and Bassey would have been deprived of one of her most well-known tunes.
