The music of For Your Eyes Only – by Bill Conti, with a hint of Ennio Morricone

There’s a scene in For A Few Dollars More (1965) where Clint Eastwood's Monco and Lee Van Cleef's Colonel Mortimer watch the bank of El Paso and wait for the arrival of El Indio and his men, who are going to rob it. The music, reflecting the tense mood and anticipation of the robbery, is a nerve-jangling and unpredictable sequence of piano chords, bells and percussion. But as I was watching the scene the other week, the score reminded me of music from another film, For Your Eyes Only (1981).

The music leading up to the bank robbery in For A Few Dollars More is characterised by a discordant sequence of drum rolls, short combinations of low notes on the piano, random beats of more drums, the striking of low piano chords, and chimes of a bell. And then, as El Indio arrives, we hear the blast of a horn that goes on forever. With a cut to a view of the safe timed with the striking of a bell and low piano chord, the music sequence ends.

Listen now to the scene in For Your Eyes Only in which Bond, after leaving Bibi Dahl at the biathlon event, is pursued by Kriegler. As Bond skis through the trees, and Kriegler attempts to get a clean shot, we hear an unsettling sequence of staccato motifs (mainly from the piano), muted rolls of the snare drum, a few searching strings (or other instrument), and crashing piano chords. And when Bond skis off the roof of a building and manages some impressive spins over the heads of henchmen on motorbikes, we get a long blast of a horn. The music sequence terminates with a few more piano chords and the striking of a bell that coincides with a shot of the ski jump building.

To me, the similarity between the two scores is uncanny. Structurally they are very close, and both employ the same devices of piano chords, drum beats, bell chimes and that wonderfully long horn blast. The pieces of music no doubt utilise a range of standard musical tropes that typically accompany such scenes of tension and suspense, but I wonder too whether Bill Conti was to some extent inspired by Ennio Morricone's music when he scored his sequence. Indeed, Jon Burlingame suggests as much in his excellent book, The Music of James Bond. In a very small way, the sound of the spaghetti western is present in the world of James Bond.
 
Note: I was unable to find the clips on YouTube, but the relevant DVD chapters are 21 (For A Few Dollars More) and chapter 12 (For Your Eyes Only).

The Music of James Bond - a review

Music is as significant a part of the James Bond films as the jaw-dropping stunts or the plots that go, in Fleming's words, beyond the probable, and is deservedly the subject of in-depth analysis. The Music of James Bond by Jon Burlingame tells the story of missed opportunities (including a shelved plan for a Moonraker symphony), legal wrangles (notoriously over the authorship of the James Bond theme), recording-studio disputes (the creative differences between John Barry and a-ha are well known), but above all wonderful, genre-defining music.

Although many people contributed to the soundtracks that accompanied the Bond films, the music was shaped and developed largely by one man, John Barry, who made the James Bond sound as instantly recognisable as, say, the music of the classic Western or that of Hitchcock's later masterpieces.

The book is packed by some fascinating facts that are likely to be new to even the most scholarly of Bond aficionados. Eric Rogers, the man who scored many a Carry On film, conducted the orchestra during the recording of the Dr No soundtrack. Led Zeppelin’s legendary guitarist, Jimmy Page, was a session musician during the Goldfinger recordings. An extra verse penned for 'Diamonds Are Forever' was dropped because the song was too long. Frank Sinatra agreed to sing 'Moonraker', but the deal mysteriously fell through. Vic Flick, who played guitar on the James Bond theme for Dr No, played the same guitar while recording the James Bond theme for Licence to Kill. Wyclef Jean contributed background tracks for the Haitian scenes in Quantum of Solace.

Taking a meme's-eye view, what especially interested me were the origins and evolution of the James Bond sound. Audiences of Dr No in 1962 are unlikely to have been completely surprised by the soundtrack, as it built on material that already existed. Composer Monty Norman borrowed elements from his musicals and was also inspired by Jamaican styles, particularly the calypso. Norman's score, notably the James Bond theme, were then given the full treatment by the well-established and popular jazz group, the John Barry Seven. And just as Norman took ideas from his earlier projects, so to did John Barry, on sole scoring duty after Dr No, take ideas from his other work. Jon Burlingame notes that some of his themes from You Only Live Twice, for example, were reminiscent of music for The Whisperers, while aspects of the score for The Man With The Golden Gun owed something to his music for The Day of the Locust.

Throughout the film series, the Bond scores continued to be influenced more generally by the external musical environment, and almost naturally evolved as they incorporated new sounds and techniques. Jazz or easy-listening styles, which dominated the Bond scores of the 1960s, gave way to synthesisers and disco in the 1970s. A harder-edged pop sound accompanied some of the films of the 1980s, and technological innovations were coupled with John Barry's increasingly symphonic approach (one that he would use to Oscar-winning effect in later, non-Bond films). Following Eric Serra’s industrial (and to an extent unfairly maligned) take on the James Bond sound for GoldenEye in 1995, David Arnold returned some of the traditional musical elements to the Bond scores (horns made a rousing comeback), but kept them modern with electronics, drum programming and unusual instruments. Latterly, the scores of the Daniel Craig era, while retaining traditional elements, have been concept-driven, with music contributing both to character and story.

Jon Burlingame's research and level of detail are impressive, even when discussing rejected theme songs, such as the many songs offered for Tomorrow Never Dies, or Amy Winehouse's embryonic theme for Quantum of Solace (elements of which would be incorporated into David Arnold's 'No Good about Goodbye', a song that appeared on Shirley Bassey's album, The Performance). As for the legacy of the work of John Barry and others, this is clear by the huge number of artists who have covered Bond themes, but also when we watch Austin Powers or other spy spoofs. The music is an integral part of the Bond film and inevitably imitated along with the gadgets, cars, action, exotic women and megalomaniac villains. From the music's origins and evolution to its legacy, Jon Burlingame's The Music of James Bond is exhaustive, and deserves a place on every Bond fan's bookshelf.

Going for a Bond song

Have you noticed that the theme song that accompanies a new Bond film sounds a little bit like the song that preceded it? The rule is not an absolute one, but it happens with sufficient frequency to suggest that the previous theme tends to be influential, even in a slight way, to its successor. Then there’s the Shirley Bassey factor. Just as every so often the Bond producers ‘reset the clock’ and make a back-to-basics Bond film, the choice of artist regularly returns to the Bassey prototype seemingly at times of renewal.

It took three films for the film’s song to be used as the accompaniment to the opening titles and the musical break between the pre-title sequence and the start of the film proper. The original theme song, Monty Norman’s James Bond theme, is played straight after the opening gun barrel in Dr No (1962), while Matt Monro is heard crooning ‘From Russia with Love’ at the end of its film (1963). The film makers may not have recognised necessarily that they had found the ideal placement with the use of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’ (1964) with the opening titles, but repeating the trick with ‘Thunderball’ (1965) certainly helped to establish the formula.

The song ‘Goldfinger’ – a big and brassy number – was very different from Monro’s ‘From Russia with Love’ (although Anthony Newley’s subdued version of ‘Goldfinger’ is closer to it). However, ‘Thunderball’ by Tom Jones is reminiscent of ‘Goldfinger’ (as is, to a lesser extent, Dionne Warwick’s alternative theme song, ‘Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’). Probably the Bond producers wanted to repeat the success of ‘Goldfinger’ with the same sort of sound, but ‘Goldfinger’ was such a big hit, it would have been difficult not to think of it when writing the next Bond song. The love song returned in 1967 in the next film with Nancy Sinatra’s ‘You Only Live Twice’, and was retained for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), although ‘We have all the time in the world’, sung by Lois Armstrong, accompanied a mid-film romantic montage.

For the return of Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), the Bond producers looked again to Shirley Bassey to reassert a familiar Bond sound. However, a new Bond, in the form of Roger Moore in Live and Let Die (1973), permitted a new type of theme song, and Paul McCartney delivered with an explosive and rockier number. This seems to have influenced the next song. Lulu’s ‘The man with the golden gun’ (1974) certainly took the dramatic tone of McCartney’s effort, despite the innuendo-laden lyrics.

Cubby Broccoli needed The Spy Who Loved Me (1976) to re-launch Bond after the disappointing returns of The Man With the Golden Gun and a host of legal battles, and the theme song helped to achieve it. ‘Nobody does it better’ was loud and proud, and the singer Carly Simon evoked Bassey’s confident tones. By now Bond themes were strongly associated with solo female artists, rather than male solo artists or groups. The association was reinforced with the next three films. If you had to think of potential artists to sing a Bond song, the chances were you’d turn first to a female singer.

A View to a Kill (1985), though, marked a change, as the group Duran Duran was chosen to perform the title song. It was so successful (it reached no. 1 in the USA and no. 2 in the UK), that the next song, ‘The Living Daylights’ was also by a group, a-ha, and was something of a clone of its predecessor.

Timothy Dalton’s second Bond film, Licence to Kill (1989) was intended as a return to Fleming’s Bond, and fittingly Gladys Knight’s theme song returned to the Bassey’s prototype; its opening bars are especially reminiscent of ‘Goldfinger’. Inevitably, after a six-year gap, the next film, GoldenEye (1995), also had a Bassey-esque theme song, sung this time by Tina Turner. Female singers were chosen for the next three songs, although Garbage’s ‘The world is not enough’ could be described as hybrid of ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘A view to a kill’.

Given the four-year wait, and the desire to again film Fleming’s Bond, Casino Royale (2006) should have had a Bassey-style song. Instead, it was accompanied by a rock number, by Chris Cornell. It was a great song, and also influential. ‘Another way to die’ by Alicia Keys and Jack White, which featured in Quantum of Solace (2008), has the same rocky style. For the next film, if media reports of Adele singing the next theme are true, then the Bond producers appear to have turned once again to the Shirley Bassey prototype.

Bond title songs are to some extent influenced by the song that preceded it. ‘Another way to die’ sounds a bit like ‘You know my name’. ‘The man with the golden gun’ sounds a bit like ‘Live and Let Die. ‘Thunderball’ sounds a bit like ‘Goldfinger’. Also we can detect that, usually at times of renewal, the Bond producers turn to Shirley Bassey, or a Shirley Bassey-type singer to help put the audience back into the world of James Bond.

James Bond's Desert Island Discs

Ian Fleming was the ‘castaway’ on BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs on the 5th August 1963. In it, Fleming, like all guests since the programme’s inception in 1942, was asked which eight records, along with a book and luxury item, he would have if alone on a desert island. The BBC recently placed the archives from the programme online, and though the recording of Fleming’s appearance is not available, his choice of music, luxury item and book are listed. Anyone listening in 1963 who had also read the Bond novels would have had an inkling about some of Fleming’s music choices.

James Bond would be hard-pressed to come up with eight records, as he is not much of a music aficionado. He knows the song ‘Belly-lick’ and the rude words to go with it (The Man with the Golden Gun, chapter 10), and is vaguely familiar with the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor ('The Living Daylights'). One of his discs, though, might be ‘La Vie en Rose’, which he recognises being played on an electric guitar in the casino’s nightclub at Royale-les-Eaux (Casino Royale, chapter 14). The tune was also Ian Fleming’s choice. The version by Edith Piaf was his third disc.

There is also music in The Spy who Loved Me, although any thoughts about it are those of the novel's heroine, Vivienne Michel, rather than James Bond. She is alone in the Dreamy Pines Motel and has the radio on for company. She hears the Ink Spot's 'Someone Rockin' my Dream Boat'. Vivienne knows the song, and it prompts her to recall a past relationship, which ultimately leads her to the motel in the Adirondacks. Fleming was a fan of the Ink Spots. The popular vocal group of the 1930s and 1940s features in his Desert Island Discs, though the record he chooses is 'If I didn't Care'. Later, Vivienne hears some Dixieland jazz. Fleming would have approved. Joe 'Fingers' Carr, a Jazz pianist, was Fleming's eighth artist, and his piece, 'The Darktown Strutters Ball', the 'castaway's favourite'.

Ian Fleming's luxury item was a typewriter (a luxury also chosen by Bond scriptwriter George MacDonald Fraser), while his chosen book was Tolstoy's War and Peace. What might James Bond's luxury and book have been? I expect the two items would have been related – a pack of cards accompanied by Scarne on Cards, or perhaps a set of golf clubs and Ben Hogan's Modern Fundamentals of Golf.