I may be in a minority here but I love Lulu's rendition of TMWTGG. It's one of my four favourite Bond theme songs...
It's my sons' second favourite Bond song (after LALD); I have a mix-disc of all Bond music, which I often play when we're driving somewhere, and when TMWTGG comes on, we all sing along to it...I must confess, I do enjoy it. Like virtually all Bond themes, it has grown on me over the years...
I also don't particularly love Cooper's rendition (or his music in general) so I am certainly relieved that the producers stuck with Lulu.
Here's a nice bit of coincidence/irony: My wife just bought our tickets today to see the incomparable Mr. Cooper in concert in October! B-)
As a child of the Seventies, I am a big fan of his music. I've never seen him before (one of the few musical heroes of my misspent youth whom I haven't!), so needless to say I'm very excited...
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Hey there, very new on here as of tonite, just reading, checking out the site, and your post hit something that, as a FREAK (oops!) I've been hunting for, and so thought I'd throw it out there to see if others besides us (that would be me & you)do this! LOL!
With the 30th Anniversary CD We got Shirley Bassey's unreleased Thunderball theme recording, and an alternate take by Dionne Warick, as well as the Anthony Newley demo of Goldfinger, and simply "demo" of You Only Live Twice, which (and here's where the FREAK comes in), I found out after reseaching the net til blue in the face) was originally titled Volt, and sung by Julie Rodgers, but was rejected. And this got me thinking....are there other demos & rejected versions out there?
Now, you mentioned Alice Cooper's Man With The Golden Gun. (another I had found) I've also come across For Your Eyes Only - Blondie, a Take 2 of Live & Let Die by Paul, an early very rough View To A Kill - Duran Duran, and Tomorrow Never Dies versions by Swan Lee, St. Etienne, and a confirmed Bond reject, Tomorrow Never Lies, by Pulp.
The most recent find was a song entitled Octopussy that sounds like the gal singing has a definite accent, but French, German....or maybe Russian, I can't decipher, as I found that on a Russian website w/no name given. Then, there's still the mystery as to Bond related or simply coincidence?!
So, in answer to your question, I like Lulu's version better than Alice's, but Like Blondie's & Swan Lee's better than Sheena's & Sheryl's (am I the only one who does this to myself, or has anyone else gone though this phase of looking for the unobtainable?)
Cheers,
Len
P.S. Now, if they would just tell us who did the vocals on Dr. No!!!!!
Now, if they would just tell us who did the vocals on Dr. No!!!!!
Which song did you have in mind? Vocalists on the album include Monty Norman, Diana Coupland (Mrs Norman at the time), and members of the Byron Lee band.
Now, you mentioned Alice Cooper's Man With The Golden Gun. (another I had found) I've also come across For Your Eyes Only - Blondie, a Take 2 of Live & Let Die by Paul, an early very rough View To A Kill - Duran Duran, and Tomorrow Never Dies versions by Swan Lee, St. Etienne, and a confirmed Bond reject, Tomorrow Never Lies, by Pulp.
The list is endless, but people like all the TND rejections or Cooper were done without anybody asking. So technically if you recorded a song with your rubber ducky under the shower and send it to Sony, you have exactly the same right to claim you did a rejected song as Pulp or other nobodies who wanter to spin their careers with a publicity stunt.
Far from unobtainable - now the things that were never released. THAT's unobtainable.
Chas, didn't you have a "rejected" song for Licence to Kill?
Chas, didn't you have a "rejected" song for Licence to Kill?
Certainly did! It's called "Licence Revoked", since I wrote it before the film's title changed. It wasn't so much rejected as ignored- if they didn't throw it out, somewhere in the EON vaults is a little demo tape (nowadays it'd be a CD of course but in those days we used cassettes) with my effort wasting away. I'm sure I have another copy in my loft, somewhere.
I know better now, since first coming into contact with EON in an unrelated matter in the early 90s. They do not consider unsolicited submissions- if they want you, they'll contact you.
Of course not, but even diehard Barry fans (that would be me, again) have to admit that some of his work is better than others. TMWTGG is considered by many to be the weakest of his Bond scores, and while there are perfectly good reasons for this (mainly the lack of time he received to compose, arrange and conduct) it doesn't stand up to such masterpieces as OHMSS, YOLT, etc.
Chas, didn't you have a "rejected" song for Licence to Kill?
Certainly did! It's called "Licence Revoked", since I wrote it before the film's title changed. It wasn't so much rejected as ignored- if they didn't throw it out, somewhere in the EON vaults is a little demo tape (nowadays it'd be a CD of course but in those days we used cassettes) with my effort wasting away. I'm sure I have another copy in my loft, somewhere.
I know better now, since first coming into contact with EON in an unrelated matter in the early 90s. They do not consider unsolicited submissions- if they want you, they'll contact you.
I'm sure it was better than the Gladys Knight song. Maybe you could've done the score too, it might have actually made me like the movie more. (Not a lot more you Flemingists!)
Flattering words, JFF, but who do I have to kill to get the job ? As anyone who composes music will tell you, sometimes thinking of a title is half the battle. About ten years ago I wrote a few instrumentals using titles such as "The Undertaker's Wind", "The Belles Of Hell" (Flemingists will know where those came from), etc; they're up in the loft somewhere, but if I ever compiled them with the above song I'd have the musical version of fan fiction.
just perused some of the old threads and found this...thought Cooers version was quite good...i was trying to imagine it instrumentalised through TMWTGG, and i think with a bit of magic from JB it would have worked quite well. As for the original, yeh, it just sounds like its been rush written, rush recorded, rush released, not a great effort all round, a bit like the movie...
JD_West said "And also, there's nothing disco about that tune by any stretch of the imagination". LOL, yeah right. You don't know what you're talking about and can't understand the difference! This is 100% euro disco horrific. It's like KC and the sunshine band, but even camper. And yes it's better than Alice Coopers song, lol. )
Quoting Hardyboy:
Ah, yes, what coulda been. Alice's song has a "shimmering" quality about it, so I could see the titles being made up of rotating mirrors (a la the funhouse), with glances of Bond and some golden-gun-clutching beauties stalking each other reflected in them. Hmmm. . .already it sounds better than the water-and-Asian-babes motif used in the film!
I have to say your title sequence sounds great!
And as another fan of the Coopman, yeah it really would have been something if he had sang TMWTGG.
En, yeah, it really sounds great. I like it too.:p:p
I have always been an Alice Cooper fan, and I really think the Bond producers missed the boat with this one. I don't completely hate the Lulu song, but Alice is an icon, and this song would have really added a cool, 70's rock vibe that would have stood the test of time (in my opinion.)
There's noise and shrieking with Lulu's version but it's one of those annoyingly catchy songs that is something of a guilty pleasure. I prefer the orchestral incarnations as The Cat stated in an earlier post (I hope you are well Cat wherever you are). I had never heard Alice Cooper's version before looking at this topic so I listened to it a few times and it grew on me the more I listened. A definite thumbs up.
Reading my previous post may well give you the impression that I do not like Lulu. But this is not the case. To prove it I am offering her version of The Man Who Sold The World as an alternative title song to The Man With The Golden Gun. They were both released around the same time. Change a few words and TMWSTW would have been a great title song, in my opinion.
Comments
It's my sons' second favourite Bond song (after LALD); I have a mix-disc of all Bond music, which I often play when we're driving somewhere, and when TMWTGG comes on, we all sing along to it...I must confess, I do enjoy it. Like virtually all Bond themes, it has grown on me over the years...
Here's a nice bit of coincidence/irony: My wife just bought our tickets today to see the incomparable Mr. Cooper in concert in October! B-)
As a child of the Seventies, I am a big fan of his music. I've never seen him before (one of the few musical heroes of my misspent youth whom I haven't!), so needless to say I'm very excited...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
With the 30th Anniversary CD We got Shirley Bassey's unreleased Thunderball theme recording, and an alternate take by Dionne Warick, as well as the Anthony Newley demo of Goldfinger, and simply "demo" of You Only Live Twice, which (and here's where the FREAK comes in), I found out after reseaching the net til blue in the face) was originally titled Volt, and sung by Julie Rodgers, but was rejected. And this got me thinking....are there other demos & rejected versions out there?
Now, you mentioned Alice Cooper's Man With The Golden Gun. (another I had found) I've also come across For Your Eyes Only - Blondie, a Take 2 of Live & Let Die by Paul, an early very rough View To A Kill - Duran Duran, and Tomorrow Never Dies versions by Swan Lee, St. Etienne, and a confirmed Bond reject, Tomorrow Never Lies, by Pulp.
The most recent find was a song entitled Octopussy that sounds like the gal singing has a definite accent, but French, German....or maybe Russian, I can't decipher, as I found that on a Russian website w/no name given. Then, there's still the mystery as to Bond related or simply coincidence?!
So, in answer to your question, I like Lulu's version better than Alice's, but Like Blondie's & Swan Lee's better than Sheena's & Sheryl's (am I the only one who does this to myself, or has anyone else gone though this phase of looking for the unobtainable?)
Cheers,
Len
P.S. Now, if they would just tell us who did the vocals on Dr. No!!!!!
Which song did you have in mind? Vocalists on the album include Monty Norman, Diana Coupland (Mrs Norman at the time), and members of the Byron Lee band.
The list is endless, but people like all the TND rejections or Cooper were done without anybody asking. So technically if you recorded a song with your rubber ducky under the shower and send it to Sony, you have exactly the same right to claim you did a rejected song as Pulp or other nobodies who wanter to spin their careers with a publicity stunt.
Far from unobtainable - now the things that were never released. THAT's unobtainable.
Chas, didn't you have a "rejected" song for Licence to Kill?
Certainly did! It's called "Licence Revoked", since I wrote it before the film's title changed. It wasn't so much rejected as ignored- if they didn't throw it out, somewhere in the EON vaults is a little demo tape (nowadays it'd be a CD of course but in those days we used cassettes) with my effort wasting away. I'm sure I have another copy in my loft, somewhere.
I know better now, since first coming into contact with EON in an unrelated matter in the early 90s. They do not consider unsolicited submissions- if they want you, they'll contact you.
Underpinned by John Barry's music and Don Black on-point lyrics, even bad John Barry (is there such a thing?) is better than Alice, IMHO.
Duran Duran were apparently inspired by Lulu's song when it came to writing AVTAK.
Nothing special by all means, but almost anything could beat Lulu's song IMO, which I find awful.
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
Of course not, but even diehard Barry fans (that would be me, again) have to admit that some of his work is better than others. TMWTGG is considered by many to be the weakest of his Bond scores, and while there are perfectly good reasons for this (mainly the lack of time he received to compose, arrange and conduct) it doesn't stand up to such masterpieces as OHMSS, YOLT, etc.
I'm sure it was better than the Gladys Knight song. Maybe you could've done the score too, it might have actually made me like the movie more. (Not a lot more you Flemingists!)
The Man With The Golden Gun - Alice Cooper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R500VKA9-Zo
The Man Who Sold The World - Lulu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2plnc6jfvI