FEATURE:
When You Got a Job to Do, You Got to Do It Well
IMAGE CREDIT: UMG
A Holy Bond: Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live and Let Die at Fifty
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I do not often…
PHOTO CREDIT: Redferns/Getty Images
celebrate big anniversaries for songs (only albums normally), but there is one that I wanted to mark. In my opinion, the best James Bond theme song is Paul McCartney and Wings’ (I shall shorten it to ‘Wings’ for the rest of the feature) Live and Let Die. It has all the ingredients that you look for in a Bond theme: drama, sexiness, a hook-y chorus, and explosions, tension and whimsy. It is a beautiful song written by Paul and Linda McCartney. It was released on 1st June, 1973. I was keen to explore the track ahead of its fiftieth anniversary. 1973 was a big year for Wings. On 30th April, we marked fifty years of the band’s second studio album, Red Rose Speedway. Whilst it received some mixed reviews upon its release, I think that it has been re-examined since. Containing the classic My Love, it is a wonderful album that was a big step up from their 1971 debut album, Wild Life. Later in 1973 (5th December), Wings released the mighty Band on the Run. Their finest album, I think it ranks alongside the very best Beatles albums – although Paul and Linda McCartney were creating something distinct and new with Wings. That album is a colossus that proved Wings were much more than a Beatles side-project. In the same way as The Beatles would release singles that did not feature on their studio albums, Live and Let Die was this amazing release between two studio albums that could have appeared on Band on the Run. It did appear on the Archive Collection Reissue of Band on the Run and as part of Red Rose Speedway Archive Collection reissue – though the group could easily have slotted it onto the original album as a closer or hidden track.
Live and Let Die was released in the U.K. as Apple R 5987 on 1st June, 1973. It spent fourteen weeks on the singles chart. It reached number nine. There are a few features that I want to introduce, as this is an iconic song in the cannon and catalogue of Paul McCartney. Reaching number two in the U.S., Canada and Norway, Live and Let Die was a huge hit that has divided people when it comes to the all-time best Bond songs. I think it should always be at the top. With Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Henry McCulloug, Denny Seiwell, and Ray Cooper in supreme form, this song will live forever. The legendary George Martin (who produced most of The Beatles’ studio albums) was responsible of the orchestral arrangement. When it was released as a single, the B-side was I Lie Around. Many have interpreted this song as a reply to John Lennon’s track, How Do You Sleep? A track (from his 1971 album, Imagine) that attacks Paul McCartney, this unofficial reply is typically clever and subtle. I am going to start by bringing in a feature from Entertainment Weekly. In 2021, they revealed the story of the most exhilarating Bond theme ever:
"Live and Let Die" was written by McCartney and his wife Linda while the band was recording Wings' second album, Red Rose Speedway, in London. "On the Sunday, I sat down and thought, okay, the hardest thing to do here is to work in that title," the ex-Beatle would later tell Mojo journalist Paul Du Noyer. "I mean, later I really pitied who had the job of writing Quantum of Solace. So I thought, Live and Let Die, okay, really what they mean is live and let live and there's the switch. So I came at it from the very obvious angle. I just thought, 'When you were younger you used to say that, but now you say this.'"
"Live and Let Die" was put on tape at London's AIR studios. "It was recorded live in a big room," Wings guitarist Denny Laine, who plays bass on the track, tells EW. "We had to have the orchestra live and so we needed the big room. I think it was recording it live that gave it the excitement. It usually does in a studio. When you've got a live recording it has the energy, the performance, which may be the reason why it was so popular."
The track was produced by George Martin, the longtime Beatles collaborator. "Oh, George was a sweetheart," Laine says of the producer. "He was the ultimate professional. Obviously it was Paul who wanted him. He knew what he was doing. He always had suggestions too. He wasn't a background guy. He was up front. He gave good ideas."
According to 007 legend, when franchise producer Harry Saltzman initially heard the track he thought it was a demo and planned to have it another performer cover it, before being informed that McCartney would only allow the song to be used if it was performed by Wings. Saltzman acquiesced to the demand, to the benefit of both the franchise and the band. "Live and Let Die" proved the most successful Bond theme up to that date, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard chart. The tune was nominated for an Academy Award but was beaten by the title song from The Way We Were. Wings' first album, 1971's Wild Life, had not enjoyed the critical or commercial success of McCartney's work with The Beatles. Red Rose Speedway was a bigger hit, but it was the success of "Live and Let Die" which really established the band as a major musical force. "It was pretty big for us," Laine says of the song. "We used to do it live ourselves with the band, with Wings. Obviously, the audience just loves that track because it was so famous."
Wings dissolved in 1981, but "Live and Let Die" has lived on. In 1991, Guns N' Roses included a cover of song on the band's multi platinum-selling album Use Your Illusion I with their version becoming a staple of the group's live show. "I loved it, I really did," says Laine. "It lends itself to a heavy rock version. Wings' version was a rock version to a certain degree but it was also an orchestra. Guns N' Roses did it as a rock band and they did a good version of it."
Over the years, the song has become a fixture at solo shows by both McCartney and Laine. "It always goes down really well," says Laine. "It's like a 'Goodnight!' song. The fact that it goes from the slow section to the fast section, and then back into the slower piece, and then rocks out at the end, is a great way of finishing the show”.
I will finish by looking at the aftermath and success of Live and Let Die. I don’t think that we often think about James Bond themes isolated. What I mean is that they are always associated with the film, and we do not really discuss them in the context of an artist’s career alone. I think, when it comes to Wings, I always feel it is a single that has a life of its own. One that you could play now and it would not necessarily make you think of James Bond. It is a track that remains so fresh and compelling because it has this dexterity and depth. I will move to an article from The Guardian that was published last year. The tale goes that James Bond producers heard the Wings song and thought it was a demo. They wanted a female singer to record the vocals, rather than Paul McCartney. The Guardian recount the story about a song that could only be delivered by the genius that is Paul McCartney:
“It had always seemed inconceivable that the James Bond producers wanted to replace Paul McCartney with another singer for Live and Let Die, particularly as his title song for the 1973 Roger Moore classic became a massive hit.
But the story told by Beatles record producer George Martin, and repeated by McCartney, was that the 007 producers thought McCartney’s recording with his band Wings was just a demo and they wanted a female voice.
Now Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, authors of a forthcoming book, have unearthed unpublished contracts in a US university archive which show that the Bond producers always wanted McCartney for the opening credits and another performer for the film’s disco scene.
Kozinn, music critic of the New York Times for 38 years until 2014, said: “This has been a longstanding story in the music world – the producers of Live and Let Die wanted to replace McCartney with a female singer. Martin told the story many times. Paul’s picked it up many times. Actually, the internal communications revealed that it was always in the contract that there would be two versions of the song.”
In his 1979 memoir, All You Need is Ears, Martin recalled playing McCartney’s recording to Harry Saltzman, who produced the Bond films with Albert “Cubby” Broccoli: “He sat me down and said, ‘Great. Like what you did, very nice record, like the score. Now tell me, who do you think we should get to sing it?’ That took me completely aback. After all, he was holding the Paul McCartney recording we had made. And Paul McCartney was – Paul McCartney. But he was clearly treating it as a demo disc. ‘I don’t follow. You’ve got Paul McCartney,’ I said. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s good. But who are we going to get to sing it for the film?’ ‘I’m sorry. I still don’t follow,’ I said, feeling that maybe there was something I hadn’t been told. ‘You know – we’ve got to have a girl, haven’t we?’”
In one interview, McCartney said: “The film producers found a record player. After the record had finished they said to George, ‘That’s great, a wonderful demo. Now when are you going to make the real track, and who shall we get to sing it?’ And George said, ‘What? This is the real track’.”
Sinclair, an award-winning documentary-maker, said: “That became part of that collection of stories that George and Paul would tell over the years, and nobody ever corrected it”.
Regardless of where you rank Live and Let Die among the other James Bond themes, there is no denying it is a Wings classic and one of the best songs Paul (and Linda) McCartney ever wrote. In the middle of a year where they were arguably at their commercial peak, this magnificent, mad and wonderful Bond theme was released into the world. On 1st June, we mark fifty years of an iconic and classic theme. Wikipedia provide some information about the commercial acclaim and critical reception of Live and Let Die:
“Upon release, "Live and Let Die" was the most successful Bond theme up to that point, reaching No. 1 on two of the three major US charts (though it only reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100) and No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also received positive reviews from music critics and continues to be praised as one of McCartney's best songs. It became the first Bond theme song to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but ultimately lost the award to Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were". It won the Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) at the 16th Annual Grammy Awards in 1974.
Wings performed "Live and Let Die" live during their concert tours and McCartney continues to play it on his solo tours, often using pyrotechnics during the instrumental breaks. It has been covered by several bands, including Guns N' Roses, whose version appears on their 1991 album Use Your Illusion I. One of the more popular covers of the song, their version was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards in 1993. In 2012, McCartney was awarded the Million-Air Award from Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), for more than 4 million performances of the song in the US”.
Billboard's contemporary review called it "the best 007 movie theme" to that time and one of McCartney's most satisfying singles, by combining sweet melody, symphonic bombast and some reggae into one song. Cash Box said that the song was "absolutely magnificent in every respect". Record World predicted that it "should have a long chart life."
"Live and Let Die" reached No. 1 on two of the three major US charts, though only reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 for three weeks. It was kept from the No. 1 spot each week by three different songs, "The Morning After" by Maureen McGovern, "Touch Me in the Morning" by Diana Ross, and "Brother Louie" by Stories. "Live and Let Die" also peaked at No. 9 in the UK. The single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies.
Sales of the single release and of the sheet music were "solid."[23] The sheet music used the line "in this ever-changing world in which we live in" as part of the opening verse of the song. In the Washington Post interview more than 30 years later, McCartney told the interviewer, "I don't think about the lyric when I sing it. I think it's 'in which we're living', or it could be 'in which we live in', and that's kind of, sort of, wronger but cuter," before deciding that it was "in which we're living".
IN THIS PHOTO: Wings on holiday in 1972/PHOTO CREDIT: MPL Communications Ltd
"Live and Let Die" was not featured on a McCartney album until the Wings Greatest compilation in 1978, and was included again on 1987's All the Best!, 2001's Wingspan: Hits and History, 2016's Pure McCartney, and in 2018 as a restored bonus track on a reissue of Red Rose Speedway. The entire soundtrack also was released in quadrophonic. It was also included on The 7" Singles Box in 2022.
United Artists promoted the song in trade advertisements for Academy Award consideration, though producer Broccoli opposed the marketing tactic as unnecessary. The song became the first James Bond theme song to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song (garnering McCartney his second Academy Award nomination and Linda her first). In the Academy Award performance of the song, entertainer Connie Stevens dressed in a "silver-lamé outfit" with a Native American-looking headdress "descended from the ceiling" and then was "variously lifted and tossed about" by dancers dressed in various colours until she left the scene. The song lost to the eponymous theme song from the musical film The Way We Were”.
Undoubtedly one of those songs that is impossible to dislike, the epic Live and Let Die turns fifty on 1st June. I first heard the song when I was very young, and it has lost none of its power and drama. It is a wonderful song that will always be special to me. Some may say that it is not the greatest Bond theme ever. There is no doubt in my mind that….
NOBODY did it better.