Live and Let Die, the movie, was another big hit for the Bond franchise but it was the theme that had a bigger impact. While many do seem to consider “Live and Let Die” as an all-time great Bond theme, I tend to think of it as just good enough.
#PAUL MCCARTNEY LIVE AND LET DIE FULL#
But the reggae section feels awkwardly placed for this type of song and a part of me wishes there were more lyrics that could make it feel like a full song. Some elements I like include the mocking backing vocals that sing “You know you did” during the ballad portion, when the orchestra comes in hitting you right in the face, and when McCartney lets out a high note at the end of his on “hell” as the orchestra swells throwing himself into the action. For what it is, “Live and Let Die” is a well-made Bond theme. I’ve heard this song play many times without thinking much about the James Bond connection. Of all the Bond themes, “Live and Let Die” is the one I’m familiar with the most mainly because of me growing up listening to the Beatles and in large Paul McCartney. But then he hits a high note that leads straight back to the action sequence before going back to the ballad, repeating the intro again before going back into the action sequence that builds to its uncertain-sounding finale. Then, it gets quiet before the orchestra comes blasting in when the title is sung before going into a full-on cinematic action sequence with its recognizable riff and frantic playing that gets interrupted for a short while by a sort of faux reggae part where McCartney babbles about doing your job well and giving the other fellow hell. It starts out as a somber piano ballad where McCartney laments this person’s lost innocence. Musically, “Live and Let Die” feels more like a collection of parts than a song. It’s all about the sweeping emotion and feel of the music.
When you were young, your heart used to be more open and freewheeling but now in this ever-changing world in which we live in it makes you want to live your life without any regard for anyone else hence the title.īut you don’t go to a Bond theme to pay attention to the lyrics. There’s not much to the lyrics but they basically amount to McCartney singing about I guess becoming more cynical when you grow up. I just thought, ‘When you were younger you used to say that, but now you say this.” You can tell all this from looking at the song. So I came at it from the very obvious angle. So I thought, Live And Let Die, OK, really what they mean is live and let live and there’s the switch.
Years later, McCartney talked about the difficulties he had in writing a song around the film title, “It was a job of work for me in a way because writing a song around a title like that’s not the easiest thing going. McCartney and Wings recorded “Live and Let Die” during the sessions for their second album Red Rose Speedway with McCartney’s former producing partner in the Beatles George Martin reuniting with him to produce, Martin’s second time producing a Bond theme after “ Goldfinger.” McCartney was not initially planned to sing the theme with Saltzman thinking of getting Shirley Bassey or Thelma Houston to sing it but McCartney would only allow the song to be used in the film if he and his newly formed band Wings performed it so he got his way. After reading the Ian Fleming novel, McCartney immediately wrote the song along with his wife Linda and recorded the song just as immediately. “Live and Let Die” came about when the film’s producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli contacted Paul McCartney on writing a theme for the movie. Instead, they got Paul McCartney to perform the theme, a Bond theme that sounds very much like a Paul McCartney song.
#PAUL MCCARTNEY LIVE AND LET DIE MOVIE#
With this premise, you’d think the people behind the movie would have gotten some of the great blaxploitation soundtrack artists like Isaac Hayes or Curtis Mayfield to bring some of their orchestral flavored soul and funk into the theme. SONG AT #1 THAT WEEK: Maureen McGovern’s “ The Morning After”įrom reading about 1973’s Live and Let Die, the eighth James Bond movie and the first to feature Roger Moore as Bond, the film was the franchise’s attempt to capitalize on the early ’70s trend of blaxploitation films utilizing many of the genre’s tropes, featuring more Black characters, and taking place in predominately Black settings like Harlem, New Orleans, and the Caribbean. Paul McCartney & Wings- “Live and Let Die” If you like what I’m doing, comment and let me know what random Hot 100 hit song you want me to review. In Random Tracks, I’m reviewing a random hit song from any point in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 going from the chart’s beginning in 1958.
0 kommentar(er)
