You Only Live Twice Musical Score
Moore Not Less
Posts: 1,095MI6 Agent
For me, You Only Live Twice has the best musical score of the series. I can't remember the last time I watched the film from start to finish. I can't go past the wedding scene without pressing the rewind button at least three times, that piece of music blows me away every time, it is my favourite piece of music in the entire series. Other great music comes in the scene where Bond is buried at sea and two frogmen come along and carry his body to a nearby submarine. In fact I find virtually the whole score of YOLT inspirational.
I do not have the soundtrack album, so I would be interested to know how many tracks there are, and what they are called.
I would also like to know what you think about the score of YOLT, and what is your favourite piece of music?
I do not have the soundtrack album, so I would be interested to know how many tracks there are, and what they are called.
I would also like to know what you think about the score of YOLT, and what is your favourite piece of music?
Comments
In the movie, can anyone tell me where the song "Tanaka's World" (I think) comes in?
Track listing...
1. You Only Live Twice (Title Song) - Nancy Sinatra
2. Capsule In Space
3. Fight At Kobe Dock - Helga
4. Tanaka's World
5. A Drop In The Ocean
6. The Death Of Aki
7. Mountains And Sunsets
8. The Wedding
9. James Bond - Astronaut?
10. Countdown For Blofeld
11. Bond Averts World War Three
12. You Only Live Twice (End Title) - Nancy Sinatra
13. James Bond In Japan
14. Aki, Tiger And Osato
15. Little Nellie
16. Soviet Capsule
17. Spectre And Village
18. James Bond - Ninja
19. Twice Is The Only Way To Live
13 onwards are the new tracks, but by far the best piece on there is Capsule In Space.
Cheers, the next time I drink one of Scotland's finest, I will remember to toast you. On the other hand I could be lying face down in a gutter and I won't even remember my own name.
You can say that again!
The OTT, sci-fi fantasy films: You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker seem to bring out the best in John Barry.
I absolutely love the YOLT score. Definately one of John Barry's best, rivalling OHMSS. Even John Barry haters like the score, so it must be quite good
Nancy Sinatra's title song is inspiring. For years it was my favourite piece of all Bond music. The sound really captures my imagination and instantly transport's me to the far east, but as you say it does not really match the tone of the film.
Now I would place it third behind OHMSS and The Living Daylights, but I still rate it very highly and I never get bored of hearing it.
I always thought that one day that some DJ would began a tune with Capsule in Space - dialogue samples and all - an obvious b-side would be the Soviet version.
Plus Nancy's redition on the End Title is the stuff adulthood was made for. After all those years having only the title song on a compliation album - then to discover that was a great moment.
It just depends on how far you want to suspend your disbelief. Yeah, the missed swings ARE pretty evident most of the time, but hey, how many times do we see people get shot in these pics but sport no bullet holes and squirt no blood? Or even worse, the times when a gun is supposed to be firing and yet there is no muzzle flash (those drive me BUG****!) Aren't those moments missing something as well, yet we roll with them anyway.
The bold style of the YOLT rooftop shot sort of overshadows (for me anyway) the flawed details of its execution.
I take the YOLT dvd out at least monthly to watch the gyro copter sequence (between cinema and tv and vhs and laserdisc and dvd, I have probably watched the helicopter battle 500 times by now), but I usually also watch the Kobe fight as well.
Major Garland Briggs, in TWIN PEAKS
If you take the score out of STAR WARS, the first couple movies (SW & EMPIRE) -- the only decent ones in my opinion -- the films would fall flat.
Lots of flatly-directed and straightforwardly edited adventure pics rely on music to hype the action (there's a scene in the middle of STAR TREK 3 when the klingons are trying to sneak up on the Enterprise that, if not for the score hyping the action, would play out almost like sitcom, because the live-action visuals are so static and unmemorable. Compare that with a similar scene in the middle of TREK2 -- directed by Nick Meyer -- and you see all sorts of great insert shots, camera movement, and a sense of the inexorable in the assembly of these dynamic shots ... same idea, totally different execution.)
I think the way you feel about the YOLT rooftop is kind of the way I feel about the scene in OHMSS when Bond is fighting everybody in that room filled with bells. The scene is hysterically overcut, presumably to hide bad fight action (which is something even more wince-producing during the opening beach scene in OHMSS, when Lazenby is swinging punches like ... well, like a girl, and missing landing the blows by a mile, something not masked by the speeded up action), but basically I suppose the resonating sound of the bells is supposed to get the audience past the poor visual quality of the sequence.
I didn't see OHMSS (except for that weird 2part ABC version) in the theater till around 1980 or so, and even though faster cutting had become more the norm by that point, the bell scene seemed like something from an experimental movie (that's being generous, I mean it seemed like something done in a Super-8 filmmaking class filled with teenagers who went crazy with the scissors & the splicing tape when assemblying their first scene.)
Long digression, but anyway, I really DO get what you mean about the blows not landing.
Major Garland Briggs, in TWIN PEAKS
YOLT has one of the most well-rounded scores of the series, for sure, and it displays some of John Barry's finest work.
Slightly more importantly, this score is also tops with David Arnold. To paraphrase an interview with him at the time of TND, within the first ten minutes of the film you've heard the Bond Theme, "Capsule In Space" (aka "Space March"), and the YOLT song- Bond music just doesn't get any better than that!
My favourite bond song & fave score. Shame Robbie Williams had to butcher it.