James Bond theme songs: What's the best one?

When I was young and fancy free, I once went out with a girl whose major criteria for granting a guy a second date (and trust me when I say there was always a long line of potential grant recipients) was whether we could offer a persuasive answer to the question: What is your favorite James Bond theme song? (I could identify--in high school, I once bailed on a girl after it became apparent that I was going to be subjected to a steady stream of Cat Stevens and Three Dog Night songs from her LP collection.)

But I digress. Outside of arguing over who's the best baseball player or the worst president of all time, what could be more emotionally satisfying than debating the merits of the amazing array of James Bond theme songs? So kudos to Drew Kerr at TotalMusicGeek, who came up with the great idea of doing a Top 20 ranking of the themes--along with a YouTube link allowing us to watch all of the film's title sequences while listening to the themes.

I'm not sure I agree with all of Drew's rankings--he puts Nancy Sinatra's steamy rendition of "You Only Live Twice" (covered not so long ago by Coldplay) at No. 1, which strikes me as a bit high. But puzzling over the entire Bond aesthetic is half of the fun of playing the game. I agree with Drew that the new Jack White-Alicia Keys theme, "Another Way to Die," is, well, dreadful, almost as bad as Madonna's dreary "Die Another Day" and Garbage's dismal "The World Is Not Enough." On the plus side, I'd forgotten how good Tina Turner sounds on "GoldenEye" (co-written by Bono and the Edge) or how classic Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" feels today, perhaps because it was co-written by the one and only Marvin Hamlisch, who's still enough of a brand name to get name-checked in "Role Models."

Anyway, go see for yourself--and don't miss the wonderfully kitschy title sequence from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As for my favorite theme? If you must know, I'm going with Tom Jones' brassy gals-toss-your-panties-on-stage version of "Thunderball." But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself:

Photo of Eunice Gayson and Sean Connery in "Dr. No" from UPI

Comments

[Abbie]

Thunderball is my favorite too! It is the ultimate Bond song - big brassy horns and the biggest voice of all - Tom Jones!

[Dan]

What's sad is there's no shortage of argument over who's the WORST, either. "Twice" is an excellent pick for number one; those soaring violins are just perfect.

[Kit Stolz]

Good catch...the Bond song that I still remember best is McCartney's "Live and Let Die," which forged a new sound out of his inexhaustible creativity and the bombastic Bond style. I don't know that it's "the best" but I think with this song the idea of huge rock stars consciously working with big commercial filmmakers first became cool.

John is my favorite Beatle, but I've learned never to underestimate Paul.

[utzworld]

Goldfinger - HANDS DOWN!

[Hope]

Come on, people, Shirley Bassey and John Barry set the gold standard with "Goldfinger"!Everything after that was an attempt to duplicate it's success (the soundtrack album was number 1 in the U.S. during the height of Beatlemania due to Shirley Bassey's vocals and that terrific blend of trumpets and violins by John Barry) or to go in a completely different direction. John Barry himself said that when he was writing "Thunderball" the producers wanted to make it "Thunderfinger". Plus, Tina Turner sounds so good on "Goldeneye" because the U2 boys recognized the value of that "iconic" Bassey/Barry sound.

[Dixon Steele]

Not even close. Shirley Bassey's performance of GOLDFINGER, along with its lush arrangements, is #1.

And I actually prefer John Barry's theme to YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE In its orchestral version, with its lush strings, rarther than the vocal, good as it is.