David Arnold's unused Die Another Day theme?

SpectreOfDefeat

Throughout Die Another Day's soundtrack, David Arnold makes use of a secondary theme similar in sound to the Bond theme, which usually appears during "action" bits, for example:



at around the 1:47 mark during the hovercraft chase:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5WZUEYeTY&list=PLB5CC0D5ACED0F860&index=6


at around the 1:53 mark during the sword fight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02K9oJs9CTw&list=PLB5CC0D5ACED0F860&index=20


at around the 0:45 mark when Bond travels to Iceland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxFJFWJmw4&list=PLB5CC0D5ACED0F860&index=23


and so on etc. If you listen carefully to this theme, the musical phrasing sounds a lot like the words "Die- ANOTHER- Day". It's well known that David Arnold's "Surrender" theme for Tomorrow Never Dies was rejected, but is still identifiable in the score of that film. Is this a similar case? Is this "action" motif actually David Arnold's rejected Die Another Day theme, intended for the title sequence? Or just a coincidence? What do others think?

Barbel

Yes, this is a similar case. It's called "I Will Return" and if I recall correctly Don Black either had lyrics ready or was set to do that when ...sigh... Madonna's song was chosen for the credits.

emtiem

It came up on Twitter recently and, although I don't like to pester celebs with questions, he was engaging a bit with someone who'd done a nice piano version I think; so I asked him whether the song would have been an up-tempo thing (as we hear in Whiteout, is it?) or a slow more ballad-y thing as in Peaceful Fountains Of Desire, and he did answer, although it was the one-word answer of "both"!

Obviously I didn't want to press it, so a slightly mysterious answer which maybe doesn't help much to figure out what it might have sounded like! Did it have both slow and fast, punchy bits? Or was it somewhere between the two? Like TWINE perhaps? Or was he just being mischievous?

emtiem

SpectreOfDefeat wrote:

Throughout Die Another Day's soundtrack, David Arnold makes use of a secondary theme similar in sound to the Bond theme, which usually appears during "action" bits, for example:



at around the 1:47 mark during the hovercraft chase:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5WZUEYeTY&list=PLB5CC0D5ACED0F860&index=6

In my head that bit has always been the sort of fanfare which would have opened the song, like Goldfinger's famous two opening notes.
My guess the version most like the song would have used is about seven seconds into this (is this Whiteout?):

https://youtu.be/jUqaeO7NW3s?t=8

Followed then of course by the I Will Return melody up to about 35 secs in. I think this is one of the most full versions in the score.

The other is this, much slower one, which I think tells us a bit more about the tune and probably gives us the fullest idea. What I'd be interested in is whether the section from 35-50 seconds is part of the song melody too, it feels like it could be.

https://youtu.be/3eLC7gPISn0

SpectreOfDefeat wrote:

at around the 0:45 mark when Bond travels to Iceland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxFJFWJmw4&list=PLB5CC0D5ACED0F860&index=23

Oh that's interesting, you mean the counter phrase to the Bond melody there? Yes, I guess that could be from the song, I've never thought of that.

I think it's kind of curious that no Bond fan that I've seen has ever attempted to sort of try and build the song out of these pieces!