Maybe someone here can shed some light on this for me. I recently stumbled across a list of officially released alternative mixes/versions of various Bond themes on the old version of this site, and I’m hoping someone might be able to fill in some details about them (what’s actually different/changed, whether they’re just straight edits of the soundtrack album version etc.) I’ve included the original notations regarding where these alternative versions can be found.
James Bond Theme (Single Version) 30th Anniversary, The EMI Years Volume 3, Themependium
From Russia with Love (Film Version) Themeology
From Russia with Love (Ember Single Version) John Barry Revisited
007 (Ember Single Version) John Barry Revisited
From Russia with Love (Organ Version) (Ember Rerecording) John Barry Plays 007 LP, John Barry Revisited
Goldfinger (Single Version) Shirley Bassey: The Complete EMI Columbia Singles Collection
(Single Version) [edit] The Legendary Tom Jones – 30th Anniversary, Tom Jones: The Decca Years, Themependium
You Only Live Twice (Alternate) 30th Anniversary
You Only Live Twice (Single Version) Nancy in London
(The More Things Change (Vocal Version)) Vinyl Single
Live and Let Die (Alternate Version) The In-Laws
Live and Let Die – B.J. Arnau (Single Version) Vinyl Single, B.J. Arnau LP
For anyone who might have been around on the old forums, I’m aware that’s not the complete list - I didn’t bother listing the ones that I already knew about/were self-explanatory. But these are all new to me so any further info would be appreciated!
Agreed! My only exceptions would be for Radiohead to have got Spectre and Shirley to have got Quantum. My favourite band of all time are St Etienne and I love much of their stab at TND but the verses just miss the mark sadly. It’s funny, that vid popped up on my Facebook page this morning!
For all of the various alternate versions of “Tomorrow Never Dies” that are out there, and as much as everyone has always seemed to clamor for “Surrender” to have been the title track, I still prefer Sheryl Crow’s song to the rest of them.
I always felt like the score for TND was far too much of a pendulum swing away from Serra’s GE score. EON obviously took to heart the criticism at the time of not having much, if any, of the Bond theme in GE that they went overboard with it the next time around. Crow’s song helps to balance out the sound of the film, giving the film a sound that isn’t some variation of the sound of the Bond theme.
I am not sure I understand what you mean with that. Both songs are not some variation of the Bond theme, well no Bond title song is realy.
The Sherly Crow song is a stand alone song, because it does not appear in the rest of the score, whereas Surrender does reapear just like the Barry songs used to, I like that much more.
Only a few minutes but there’s something that bothers me. Brian Wilson’s “Run James Run” was never attached to a particular Bond movie. I believe it was more sort of an experiment by Brian which was never actually pitched to Eon. I also find it funny how they still call it “Run James Run” which was merely a working title (Wilson actually released a song of that name much later which has nothing to do with this one). The name is “Pet Sounds” and it’s the title track of that album by the Beach Boys, which is, as I hasten to add, one of the finest records that were ever made.
“Surrender”, while not set to the James Bond theme, does share some similarities to it. The horns at the beginning of the song, which also recur at multiple points throughout, evoke, at least for me, the horns in the Bond theme. It’s obviously not a complete copy of the Bond theme, far from it, but the DNA of the Bond theme is quite present in “Surrender” IMO and I don’t think that’s unintentional.
Given how much of the Bond theme and “Surrender” are used in the score for TND, I like having the title song as something that ends up being a different pace from the rest of it. Crow’s song both manages to sound Bondian while also not coming across as a carbon copy of what we’d expect from a Bond title track.
Also, given the high octane nature of the action sequence in the PTS and how TND is very action heavy for most of its runtime, Crow’s title track gives the audience a chance to breath where as “Surrender” is much more intense and quite suitable for sending the audience out of the theater on a continued adrenaline rush after having gone along with Bond on the action-heavy quest he’d just completed.
I am one of those that like BOTH Sheryl Crow’s Tomorrow Never Dies and k.d. lang’s Surrender. However, I think Surrender is the better song, and consider it the best non-main theme song of the series. But having said all that, I think Tomorrow Never Dies works better as the opening theme song than it does as a closing song, whereas Surrender works in either spot. So if the producers were going to include both songs, then they got the order right even though the better song is Surrender.
And is it just me or does anyone else hear strains of the old Perry Mason TV theme song in parts of Tomorrow Never Dies?
