The Many Lives of James Bond

by Mark Edlitz

  I wasn’t with John at all on the third one, “You Only Live Twice.” That was an interesting moment. I wrote “You Only Live Twice” in Kirk Douglas’s house in Palm Springs. I thought, this is pretty good; I’m in Spartacus’s living room writing for James Bond. How good can it get?

  Leslie Bricusse and Roger Moore on the right, Luisa Mattioli (Moore’s wife at the time) and Yvonne Romain (Bricusse’s wife) on the left, 1969.

  PHOTOFEST

  Were you given the script or did you see scenes?

  No, but I had previously read the book.

  There are a couple of visual images in the song “Goldfinger.” First, as you just said, there’s gold and Midas touch, but then you take a turn and refer to a “spider’s touch.”

  I had to use “spiders” because that was the only rhyme that existed with “Midas.”

  I guess that’s what Stephen Sondheim might call a “near rhyme?”

  Yes, and it shows that he’s a creepy, crawly man that you want to avoid. Spiders create those same bad feelings among people. So, while he’s got the Midas touch, he’s also got the spider’s touch. He’s not someone you’d touch easily.

  Once you’ve got a spider as a second image, the “web of sin” is a natural progression.

  The lyrics just flowed. When you write lyrics, you automatically hear rhymes and other uses [of words]. It becomes part of the mechanism of the mind when you’re composing.

  It’s a short song but you have two strong and distinct images.

  You don’t have that much room to do it all, because you’ve got to go on and develop the thought. If you’re going into the “web of sin,” then you’ve got to say who you’re warning. So you’re warning the girl about Goldfinger, and you think of Shirley Eaton, the girl who was painted gold.

  Although both songs are roughly the same length, there are twice as many lyrics in “Goldfinger” as there are in “You Only Live Twice.” [Both songs run about 2:48.]

  The lyric is as long as the melody; the melody comes first. There are more syllables to a bar in the word Goldfinger. [Humming both songs] Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, as opposed to da, da, da, da, da. There are more syllables, and so it will affect the length of the lyric on the printed page.

  How did you start writing “You Only Live Twice?”

  I have to put my mind in a kind of animated suspension. “You Only Live Twice” is a fairly oblique idea. You have to ask, “What’s the second life?” So I thought, “So one life for yourself and one for your dreams.” That became the image and then I had to deal with that second image of dreams. I deal with that in the second stanza, which takes you to the word “love,” which takes you to the “dangers” of love.

  Before you settled on “dreams” as the second “life,” did you consider other options?

  I got lucky with that one because that was the first thing I thought of and I went with it. “Dreams” gives you the rhyme that you need for “or so it seems” and that carries you on. A lyric unfolds itself as you go; you develop one thought to the next and see how it unfolds. Sometimes it doesn’t work, so you have to do it all again.

  What do you remember about writing the line: “And love is a stranger who beckons you on. Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone?”

  It works, doesn’t it? When I got the bridge of the song, when I got that, I knew I had the song, so you have to then take it back to the beginning in the last stanza, but it doesn’t mean anything. You understand that the song is about a man of action. The Japanese-style melody reflects that the movie was set in the Orient, but the meaning alters depending on your mood.

  And are you writing these down on paper with a pencil?

  Yes. Writing a lyric is not unlike doing a crossword puzzle. You have to find the right word that fits in a crossword puzzle and it’s basically the same thing in the lyric, but instead of little black squares, you’ve got the music controlling the shape of it. You have to make it fit and appear effortless so that you’re not clunking your way through it.

  I’m thinking about your crossword puzzle analogy. Sometimes when you’re doing a crossword puzzle you think you’ve written the correct words for the first three clues going down. But when you get to the fourth clue, which goes across, you then realize you have it all wrong. Then you have to start over.

  Yes, the same thing can happen in a lyric. I used to make up crossword puzzles, not solve them, but I used to create them. It’s a stepping-stone in the mysteries of lyric writing. You have to make the words fit and it’s exactly the same mental process as lyric writing.

  Do you think you could write a Bond song that’s from Bond’s point of view, using I rather than he to express his thoughts?

  That’s very interesting. Yes, that would be good. The lyrics to “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” are about the way Bond sees himself. “He’s suave and he’s smooth. And he can soothe you like vanilla.” It’s a vain song. But we have to be objective because we’re describing the man: so it has to be, he’s this, he’s that and he’s the guy. It’s the same thing as in “Goldfinger”: “He’s the man, the man with the Midas touch.” [Using the first person] wouldn’t be quite the same because I don’t think he’d say it about himself. He’d think it about himself, so that’s why we described the total image of the man.

  It seems that determining the character’s point of view is a critical step in writing a song.

  When you sit, think about it, condense the whole idea of the character, you’ve got to ask yourself, who’s singing it and what’s his point of view?

  How long does it take? Is it weeks?

  I wrote “You Only Live Twice” on a Sunday morning in Kirk’s living room, so that was three or four hours, and “Goldfinger” was about the same.

  That’s very quick.

  I had an advantage because I’ve got the title, the context, and the idea of what the content of the lyric will be. It’s much easier to write a musical than to write one song where you have to dream up an idea. It’s the reason I write musicals as opposed to individual songs. I write musicals and so I have a huge advantage of knowing the story. I know the character who is going to sing the song and I know the context in which he’s got to sing it. It narrows down the search enormously because I know what the song has to say. Whatever the next line of dialogue would be is the song.

  The process of writing a lyric is no different for a Bond song than any other theme song. You have a set of requirements but that’s not a problem. I love writing film songs because there’s a context and you know what you have to achieve from it. If you’re given a title, you just find a way to do it.

  I’ve heard Stephen Sondheim say that he’s not able to write a generic love song. But if you ask him to write a song about a woman sitting alone at a bar wearing a red hat, then he can do it.

  Yes, because it’s got a context. I agree with Steve. He’s a brilliant man of the theater. We’re old friends and he writes a particular kind of lyric and a particular kind of music, sort of jagged-edge music that somehow fits the lyric.

  Do you think about how the song has to market a movie and play over the credits and be used as the logo in the film?

  You don’t think about that. If you get the song right, then those things automatically happen. When Tony [Newley] and I wrote “Goldfinger,” we were doing a show on Broadway, Stop the World—I Want to Get Off. We were so involved in the show that we didn’t know that Shirley Bassey had recorded “Goldfinger.” We didn’t know it was a number-one song that knocked the Beatles [and their album A Hard Day’s Night (1964)] off the top of the charts.10 We only found out about it when United Artists Music called us and said, “We’ve got some gold records here for you. Do you want to come by and pick them up?” That’s the first we knew. Funny enough, I’m looking at that record right this minute. It’s hanging on the wall here.

  Should a Bond song work beyond the movie?

  “Goldfinger” couldn’t work beyond the movie. It can’t. Anytime you hear “G
oldfinger” you associate it with the movie. “You Only Live Twice” doesn’t make any sense outside of the movie because it means that Bond has nine lives.

  Ian Fleming, whose enduring hero has been adapted into movies, graphic novels, video games, radio dramas, and a television series.

  PHOTOFEST

  I completely agree with that. With one exception: Mad Men used “You Only Live Twice” in its season five finale “The Phantom.” It’s the only time I’ve heard a Bond song used outside the movie that successfully took on a different meaning.

  It could work because it doesn’t refer to anything specific. “You Only Live Twice” is a general statement, which you can pick out of the air. You wouldn’t have been able to use “Goldfinger” in Mad Men because it’s too specific. “You Only Live Twice” is just a random thought, which obviously the writer of the show thought was appropriate to include. I didn’t know about it until you just told me. That’s fascinating.

  What’s interesting about it is that the TV show is about people living double lives.

  Yes, that’s lovely, that’s a good use of a song. And there are shades of Bond in Jon Hamm’s character [Don Draper], aren’t there? That’s interesting, very interesting.

  Were you a Bond fan?

  I was an Ian Fleming fan. I bought the books as they came out. I still have a complete set of James Bond first editions, which everybody connected with the films have signed for me over the years. There are hundreds of autographs in the books. It’s a unique set; I bet nobody else has got anything like it.

  What did you like about Bond as a character?

  Oh, they were so readable. All the Bond books were quite short and were something you could read in a day if you had nothing else to do. They became fashionable and everybody read them. But just to show you how long it takes for a book to become that famous, there was a complete set of Bond books, perfect first editions for sale at the Covent Garden Bookshop. They were £20 each. Everybody thought they were very expensive because they would cost around 15 shillings when they came out. Everybody said, “My god, that’s ten times the price.” But now they’re worth around £5,000 each.

  I’m looking at a list of your songs. Not just Bond, but all of them. Whenever I hear one of your songs it takes me back, not just to the movie, but also to a specific moment in my life and it anchors that moment.

  That’s very interesting, very interesting. Yes, people do associate certain songs with certain moments that apply to them.

  It must be nice to have a song like “Pure Imagination,” which you wrote in 1971, continue to find new audiences today.

  Yes, it happens particularly with the Willy Wonka songs; people respond to them. It’s lovely to have my songs have a continuing life and through your own life. It’s very flattering.

  DON BLACK

  Don Black has written more Bond theme songs than any other lyricist. With bravado, flair, and economy of language, Black crafted the lyrics to composer John Barry’s music for “Thunderball,” “Diamonds Are Forever,” and “The Man with the Golden Gun” and to David Arnold’s compositions for “Surrender” from Tomorrow Never Dies and “The World Is Not Enough.” A diverse group of singers—Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Lulu, Garbage and k.d. lang—have interpreted his often-risqué lyrics.

  Black won the Oscar for best song for Born Free (1966) and was nominated four other times: for his work on True Grit (1969), the Michael Jackson tune Ben (1972), Gold (1974), and The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976). For the theater, Black wrote the book and lyrics for the Broadway productions of Sunset Boulevard (1994) and Dracula, the Musical (2004). He also wrote the lyrics for Bonnie & Clyde (2011) and contributed lyrics for Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl (1997) and Dance of the Vampires (2002).11

  What does a Bond song need to do?

  A Bond song should be provocative and seductive. It should have the allure of the forbidden and a whiff of the boudoir. It should be sexy. It should draw you in. It should get you hooked on the adventure that’s about to start.

  You have to construct your lyrics around the movie’s title.

  That’s true but it never bothered me. In addition to the Bond movies, I’ve had some luck with song titles. I did Born Free and To Sir, with Love (1967). You write in a different way when you know the song title in advance. It helps get your mind around the song and it points you in a direction.

  I always assumed that it would be limiting to have to use the title. But you find it helpful to not start with a blank slate.

  Right. In some ways, it’s easier. Unless you got a lousy title like Octopussy. Then you say, hang on a second. You gotta draw a line somewhere. [Laughs.]

  Let’s start with your first Bond song, “Thunderball.” How did that job come to you?

  [Eleven-time Bond composer] John Barry was a friend of mine. I wrote the lyrics to a couple of hit songs in England that were recorded by Matt Monroe that he liked. [Monroe sang “From Russia with Love,” the first Bond theme song.] John said to me, “Do you fancy having a go at this thing called Thunderball?” I said, okay. It was as simple as that.

  Then I looked up “Thunderball,” and it wasn’t in the dictionary. It doesn’t mean anything. I just thought, what kind of man is Bond and how do you get that title so that it falls effortlessly? Then I thought of the lyrics, “He always runs while others walk.” I thought, hey, that’s good. That’s Bond. Then you go from there.

  Because John wrote a muscular tune, I thought the song should have a muscular voice like Tom Jones. That’s how it started. I just instinctively do these things. I always remind myself of what Paul McCartney said when someone asked him about how he wrote “Yesterday.” He said, “It was just a good day at the office.” When you write all the time you have good days and bad days.

  For “Thunderball,” you were given the music first?

  With John Barry, I’m always given the music first.

  Do you also get the script?

  Yes, I do, but I’m never worried about that. I don’t have to pour over a script and have endless discussions about it. I much prefer someone telling me about the movie over the phone. I just asked John, “What’s it about?” He’ll tell me in a sentence or two. When writing a song, you don’t have to stick that closely to the narrative of the movie. Most people say to me, “You must be sitting down with that script racking your brains.” But I don’t. I just think of a nice way of getting the title into the lyrics. I also want to create an exciting scenario.

  There has been a playful debate among Bond fans about who the subject of the song is. It could be about either Bond or the bad guy. You’re saying it was about Bond?

  Yes, it was.

  You wrote the lyric, “So he strikes, like Thunderball.” The line makes sense emotionally. However, as you found out, the word “Thunderball” doesn’t mean anything.

  Right. In my mind, I used it as a kind of code word for the mission. But it just sang so well.

  What about the creation of “Diamonds Are Forever?”

  John Barry took a long time to write the music to these tunes. By the time he eventually phones and says, “I’ve got something,” I know he’s honed it. He’s been through it so many times in his head that when he finally plays it to you it’s like an unveiling of a finished song and not a work in progress. Once I have his melody, I just have to make the words hug the contours of the melody. I have to get some bite into the lyrics. Bond songs have to have bite.

  Is the character in “Diamonds Are Forever” a Bond woman?

  To tell you the truth, it didn’t matter that much to me. As a songwriter, I thought it had to start with the lyric, “Diamonds are forever.” I thought it has to be a girl singing it. You want to make it alluring and sexy. In fact, Harry Saltzman thought it was too sexy. There’s a lyric: “Touch it, stroke it, and undress it.” Saltzman said, “You can’t say that.” But Albert Broccoli loved it and Shirley Bassey loved it. John Barry wouldn’t dream of changing it. I thought it was such lovely imagery: “
Touch it, stroke it and undress it.” I also thought Maurice Binder, who created all those title sequences, would love it and he did love it. But there was some trouble getting those lyrics through because of all the sexual innuendo.

  Bond songs seem to be sung by and about different characters from the movies. “Diamonds Are Forever” is sung by a Bond woman. “The Man with the Golden Gun” is about a villain. “Thunderball” was about Bond.

  Yeah, it doesn’t matter who the character in the song is as long as it sounds attractive. “He always runs while others walk. He acts while others just talk.” You want to meet this guy. You know that he’s a special guy. The music is so exciting, and when you hear: “He strikes like Thunderball,” you think, we’re in for a hell of a ride tonight. It’s as simple as that.

  Talk about your writing process.

  I stare out of windows a lot. Just thinking. I also walk around the park and then I come back and just sit down and write it. It doesn’t take a long time. I think about it for three or four days before writing, and the whole song is written in under a week.

  Bond songs have to serve many masters. They have to play over the credits, they are sometimes woven through the movie itself, and they are also ambassadors for the movie. They are played on the radio and they help sell tickets.

  Everyone wants a hit record. Every time the song is played, it’s three minutes of advertising for the movie. That’s the reason they like the title of the song to be the title of the film. I was the second writer on Thunderball. They first wrote a song called “Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” and Dionne Warwick recorded it. Then they had a meeting saying, “We’ve got to call the song ‘Thunderball.’” That’s when John Barry called me and said, “Don, let’s do it.” It is valuable to have the title of the song. I’m pleased that no one asked me to write for Chainsaw Massacre.