Book Nook: Music Made Words

Books take longer to consume than records, so I find it hard to be as up to the moment with my reading as I am with my listening. But I'm always reading and most of that is (shocker) music books. Here are a few notable books on music from recent years.

Laurie Anderson’s Big Science by S. Alexander Reed (2021) It was over 40 years ago that I first became aware of Laurie Anderson, introduced by a double-page spread in Life Magazine’s The Year In Pictures. There she was, spiky-haired and playing a violin with a magnetic tape bow. Mike Tyson was a page or two over, shot from the back to emphasize his impossibly thick neck. But it was Anderson who intrigued me, having already developed an interest in avant garde music. Oddly enough, however, when people around me were going nuts over her 1982 debut album, Big Science, it kept me at arms length. Maybe the possibilities the photo had set whirling in my mind were too different from what I was hearing to be reconciled. I kept up with her over the years, though, intrigued by her collaboration with William S. Burroughs and later charmed by her relationship with Lou Reed. But it wasn’t until Landfall, her 2017 album with the Kronos Quartet, that I truly fell in love with one of her pieces.

Big Science still loomed, however, so when Reed’s book showed up, I welcomed the opportunity to take a deeper dive into its background and creation. This handsome little book is the 15th in Oxford’s Keynotes series, and only the second to take on a work of the second half of the 20th century, following John T. Lysaker’s 2018 book on Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music For Airports. It’s also the third book for Reed, following Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music and an entry in the 33 1/3 series on They Might Be Giants. And while Reed, a professor at Ithaca College, occasionally writes like the academic he is, the book is mostly a fizzy read, with his excitement about following Anderson’s trail of creativity coming through loud and clear. He also doesn’t shy away from musicological dissection when it seems useful, but always provides a way in for the uninitiated, using musical examples that almost everyone will know.

I was especially taken with his brilliance in setting up a structure that takes into account the album’s creation in the past and how it exists now. I’ll let him explain: 

“Foremost, I'm interested in the circa 1980 creation of these songs: "now" in the sense of chronos, or historical sequence. How did their concept, text, and music develop, and in dialogue with what real-world artifacts and events?…Second, I also describe what it's like to inhabit a private listening encounter, marking time not by dates and eras but from second to second: "now" in the sense of kairos, or experiential action. Third, I ask without nostalgia how Big Science resonates now in the twenty-first century, acknowledging in the book’s final chapter what some have heard as an eerie prescience in the record.” (Reed, Page 3)

This is a paradigmatic way to approach a work of the past and will be a great guide next time I revisit a classic album.

As for this classic album, Reed’s three-dimensional excavation and explication of the musical and conceptual components of every song, made the end result - when it works - even more impressive. There are still a couple of duff tracks - Sweaters, for one - that no amount of advocacy will rescue, but I find myself more immersed when listening to the songs I do like. Reed also gives Anderson her due as an extraordinarily brave, intelligent, and original artist in three mind-expanding chapters on her relationships with the musical context of the time (“New Music Versus New Wave”), sexuality and gender, and politics. People often bemoan the lack of liner notes in the streaming era. Reed’s book makes up for that lack - and then some - for an album that is a nearly bottomless well of fascination.

Ted Gioia - Music: A Subversive History (2019) Near the end of this enthralling, game-changing book, Gioia notes:

"...every major music genre today echoes, at least in part, some of the imperatives of prehistoric song. The rock star evokes the scapegoat from ancient rituals of symbolic violence. The country artist re-creates the pastoral strains of the herders, who relied on music to soothe domesticated animals, and celebrates the stable life of home and hearth. The hip-hopper returns to the monophonic chant that served to unite the first human communities, the oldest 'hoods of them all. The pop star draws an audience with erotic stylings and dance moves that remind us of the fertility rituals that gave birth to the love song." (Gioia, Page 450)

If any of that sounds farfetched to you, you desperately need to read this book. If it sounds like something you almost take for granted but don't understand why, you also need to read this book. Each one of those examples is based on broad research, and spectacularly synthesized into a text that informs you even as it excites you. Gioia goes DEEP, looking beyond and away from musicology to explore the transformative power of song, from the use of chants to scare away alpha predators from prey so human's could feed themselves to the ongoing threats to those in power from the artists engaged in a long line of "permanent revolution," such as Pussy Riot, those punk rock thorns in Putin's side. 

A key point he makes over and over again is that musical innovation almost always comes from where you least expect it - the oppressed, the poor, the marginalized - a trope that goes back to the earliest civilizations. Perhaps even more importantly, he notes that when rulers make claims about musical innovations they brought about, we need to "study these powerful figures in musical history, not for what they did, but for what they hid." That last quote come Gioia's Epilogue: This Is Not A Manifesto, 40 statements about music and its role in life and society. He describes them as precepts that forced him to "alter his beliefs" as he was researching and writing. Reading Music not only altered some of my beliefs but helped me to reposition my relationship to music, narrowing down for me what is of core importance in the music I love, and for that I am immensely grateful to Gioia. 

Alan Niester - Beyond The Printed Page: The Life And Times Of A Big Time Rock Critic (2014) The title for this often hilarious book is slightly misleading. While the first 50 pages or so detail, in his wry and witty style, his upbringing and the winding path he took to becoming a music journalist, the next 250 comprise reprints of concert reviews from Niester's time as a critic at the Toronto Globe And Mail. Not that there's anything wrong with that - and the reviews have more personality than most memoirs - but I wouldn't have minded a bit more "life" along with the "times," especially since he's got killer anecdotes, like the time he rode a bicycle from Niagara Falls, Ontario to downtown Buffalo for a concert, or playing in a garage band with future Bowie/Iggy axe-man Stacey Heydon, or nearly starting a race riot with a very drunk Lester Bangs. Lord knows what tales are still in the vault! 

The live reviews, however, constitute a fascinating, and often very funny, chronicle of the state of rock and pop from the Ramones in 1978 ("an explosion of torn jeans, aging black leather, and cultivated acne") to Jeff Mangum in 2011 ("intense but casual"). In between you get upstarts struggling to establish themselves, like U2 in 1980 ("one of the most vital and interesting new bands I've seen in the past few years"), to hall-of-famers struggling to live up to their past, like Carole King in 2005 ("She has developed a noticeable Rod Stewart rasp, most evident in the high notes and higher volumes"). Every review is a breeze to read and never less than interesting, and a few are all-time classics, such as Niester's snarky but evenhanded response to the Jonas Brothers in 2009, which he structures like a report card, grading them lowest on their lyrics: 

"English - D. Sadly, the boys' lyrics are cliché-ridden and banal, and filled with grammatical mistakes. For example, in the song World War III, they insisted they didn't want to fight "wit chyou" (sic). In Poison Ivy (not the Coasters' classic) they claimed that "Everybody needs some Poison Ivy." This is clearly wrong." (Niester, Page 299)

I look forward to having Niester's book on hand when needing to refer to a real-time reaction to a legendary band, say when writing an anniversary review. I will make sure to correct any typos, which are rife in the book, when quoting him, however. In the end, while his true love is prog-rock (he finally convinced me to listen to Wishbone Ash - the guitars are indeed great), he brings a broad knowledge and love of the music to everything he reviews, providing a fine example for critics everywhere and a fun read for everyone else.

Paul McCartney - The Lyrics: 1956 to Present (Edited with an Introduction by Paul Muldoon) (2021) This is a sly book in so many ways. From the start, Sir Paul admits he will never write a memoir but he’s happy to go song by song and talk about the process and context behind them and let something of himself take shape in your mind. Then there’s the fact that the first thing 90 percent of people will think when hearing his name is an endless spool of melody, then his fantastically versatile voice (at least in its prime), then his remarkable skill as a multi-instrumentalist. Lyrics could be dead last, although he has certainly crafted some gems, whether Blackbird, Dear Friend, Eleanor Rigby, For No One, or She’s Leaving Home, which are marvels of compressed emotion and/or narrative.

You’ll note that my little list of songs is alphabetical, which hints at my only real frustration with the book. Rather than progress through his songwriting chronologically, which would allow you to see his skills develop, from the “pronoun songs” of the early Beatles to the more allusive and surrealist stuff that came later, we are led alphabetically. Ordering them this way could also be his bid to reduce the distance between his achievement as a Beatle and his solo years, to which I say: Nice try. Moreover, putting things chronologically would also allow him to build on stories, such as the "Nerk Twins" Paris trip of 1961, or The Beatles in India, rather than just have them crop up here and there as fits the song under discussion. I suspect it's all in the game of one of the world's most famous people holding on to a shred of his privacy. 

That's not so say that The Lyrics isn't a revealing book. It's satisfying to read that even he his baffled by The Beatles' shocking trajectory, as when he says when talking about Eleanor Rigby: “To this very day, it still is a complete mystery to me that it happened at all...All these small coincidences had to happen to make The Beatles happen, and it does feel like some kind of magic. It’s one of the wonderful lessons about saying yes when life presents these opportunities to you. You never know where they could lead.” In the entry for Carry That Weight, he describes the business meetings as The Beatles headed to dissolution as "soul-destroying" - and you feel his pain at friendships and collaborations being ripped apart. He also goes deeper on his complicated relationship with that most complex of characters, John Lennon.

Naturally, there are plenty of instructive tidbits about his approach to songwriting, as when he remarks about Come And Get It, which he wrote for Badfinger: “But I was trying to write a hit, so I didn’t want anything too complicated.” He is also not shy about his bossy side, describing how he told the band not to change a thing from his demo (which he recorded in 15 minutes) rather than trying to "interpret" his song. Bossy, but 100 percent right as proven by the song's chart success.

He also drills down a little on his attraction to the ordinary, which stems from the working class roots he continues to stay in touch with, even with his fabulous wealth. In the section on Café On The Left Bank, he notes: 

"I'm actually quite a fan of 'ordinary'. I hope in many ways it defines me, and so also many of the songs I've written. Don't get me wrong; I like extraordinary people and things, but if people can be great and ordinary at the same time, that to me is kind of special. So my Liverpool family - my parents, all the aunties and uncles - they were great and ordinary, and I think the fact that this combination can be easily dismissed makes it even more special. So many people would dismiss my Liverpool family, but they're actually a lot smarter than the likes of Maggie Thatcher, say. Their attitude to life was not as uptight as many people I've encountered since. They were always up for a song around the pub piano, for example. So you can choose to be highly sophisticated but very uptight, or you can be not so sophisticated but at peace with yourself. I try and be a bit of a mixture, and I draw very strongly on that ordinariness."

One thing that is decidedly not ordinary is the physical heft and beauty of The Lyrics, which comes as two splendidly illustrated volumes in a handsome green slipcase. The photographs, may of them unfamiliar to me, are only surpassed by the artifacts, whether handwritten lyrics or drawings (many of which are quite good - another talent!), which make the books a joy just to flip through. Speaking of heft, the 858-page book only contains lyrics for 156 songs out of the 500 or so Sir Paul has written or co-written. Not only does that give you an idea of how much additional material is contained within, it also lets you know that songs were selected based on what McCartney wanted to get across. So Why Don't We Do It In The Road is here, giving him an opportunity to talk about the primal urge to procreate, while a late-career near masterpiece like Riding To Vanity Fair is left out - perhaps its still too soon to talk about what led to that dark-hued number. 

But as Paul himself says when talking about the line "Spending someone's hard-earned pay" in Two Of Us: "I don't know where that came from or what it means. I don't necessarily want meaning. I don't root for meaning all the time. Sometimes it just feels right." And this book, on the whole, feels very right. Make room on your groaning shelf of Beatles books for one more!

You may also enjoy:
Getting Back To Let It Be
Not The Price But The Cost
The Book Of Fab
The Beatles Thing
Overdosed On Pleasure: The Book Of Nilsson

Bond, James Bond: Ranking The Theme Songs

For the first decade of my life, my dad worked six days a week, eight hours a day, as a psychiatrist, to not only keep his four kids in everyday clover, but also so we could have unique experiences from time to time. As a parent now myself, I question the idea of being essentially absent 90 percent of the time so you can put on a big show later, but I am also grateful for the unforgettable things we did, one of which was getting six people on an ocean liner that takes them to France and then go on a tour of Europe for a month. This is how I found myself on the SS France at the age of nine watching something called Live And Let Die in the ships crushed-velvet jewel box of a theater. It was almost more than my pre-pubescent mind could take, just the sleekness of it all, whether the guns, cars, boats, or Roger Moore's chiseled jawline. 

While I recognize the extreme privilege of that scenario, I also embrace it as the most James Bond way to be introduced to James Bond. That was the start of my 007 obsession, too, which later included "Bonding" afternoons with my brother-in-law, in which we made our way through the entire series on rented VHS tapes, as well as several years where we saw the latest flicks on opening night. I also read everything Ian Fleming ever wrote and several books about him and the Bond films. One of my fascinations with the whole thing, besides the gripping tales and  eye-popping visuals, is the idea of one man creating something so enduring that it eventually becomes an industry all its own. Part of that industry didn't become standard until the third film: the James Bond Theme Song. As a music fanatic, nothing thrills me more than when the opening titles of a Bond film are accompanied by a song I can fully endorse.

But I also wouldn't be much of a Bond fan if I wasn't a critical Bond fan and I recognize that there have been choices along the way, from actors and screenwriters to directors and musicians, that resulted in a product that was, to put it kindly, less than ideal. Does the name Timothy Dalton ring any bells? Don't feel ashamed if not - he only made two films with the franchise in the 80s before returning to near-anonymity. And Moonraker is not just a lesser Bond film, it's just a bad movie, period. As for the music, much of that over the years was under the control of the great John Barry, who scored 11 films in the series, which now numbers 25 official entries (there were also two made by outside forces, not included here). Barry was remarkably adaptable as a composer, helping the series move from the 60s to the 70s and 80s, but always plied his trade with a flair for lush arrangements and sweeping melodies.

Barry's plush and dramatic style also infused the theme song for many years, establishing a template that often included bold brass and neck-snapping dynamics, usually driven by a vocalist with a big personality. Some of the best Bond songs became hits in their own right, leading to a latter-day scrabbling for chart success by employing popular stars who were maybe not the most suitable for the Bond sound, rather than letting the integrity of the ideas drive acceptance by audiences beyond the Bond core. With the conclusion of the Daniel Craig series finally reaching screens, there could be no better time to rank all of the theme songs from best to worst than now. At least until the next film!

A note about the James Bond Theme: Although the familiar twang of the James Bond theme is arguably the theme song for first film, Dr. No, since it went on to become a regular part of the series I did not include it in the ranking. It is a terrific piece of music, however, from the interlocking brass arrangements to Vic Flick's serrated guitar, and the way everything assembles to create an aura of mystery and excitement. Although credited to Monty Norman, who did much of the calypso-infused music for Dr. No, Barry may have written it and most certainly arranged it, using some ideas from The Bee's Knees, a song by The John Barry Seven. Whatever his role, he was paid $1,000 for his troubles - and handed the prize of scoring many of the films that followed.

1. Goldfinger (1964) - Shirley Bassey (Leslie Bricusse - Anthony Newley - John Barry) While not the first to have a theme song per se (see #7), the third movie was the first to set the template for how the theme song would be used for most of the rest of the series. And, man, did they create a tough act to follow! From the attention-getting opening with its wailing brass to Bassey's titanic performance (which made the Welsh singer an instant star) to the clever lyrics, Barry and co. did not put a foot wrong here. Fun fact: that's Jimmy Page, in his early days as a session man, strumming guitar on the track. He had a front row seat to Bassey's collapse after hitting those final high notes!

2. You Only Live Twice (1967) - Nancy Sinatra (Leslie Bricusse - John Barry) Soaring strings and swirling harp atop a lush bed of french horns open this pure fantasy of a song for the fifth movie. While Sinatra doesn't have the same power as Bassey, her penetrating, vibrato-free soprano cuts through the arrangement like a laser while she delivers the lyrics with perfect articulation. You'd never guess that Sinatra was so nervous that Barry had to assemble the vocal from 25 separate takes! Barry's arrangement is packed full of details and grounded by a distorted guitar line that snakes through the song. Vic Flick again?

3. Live And Let Die (1973) - Paul McCartney & Wings (Paul McCartney - Linda McCartney) After a dispute with producer Cubby Broccoli, Barry took a hiatus from Bond, leaving shoes so big they could only be filled by an ex-Beatle and his producer, George Martin. And, despite seeing it as "a job of work," Sir Paul accomplished the mission with aplomb, concocting ear candy perfect for seventies radio with a suite-like song that combines orchestral grandeur, rock theatrics, and a dash of reggae. Although Broccoli wanted Thelma Houston to sing it, I'm sure he changed his tune when the track hit #1 in the U.S.

4. No Time To Die (2020) - Billie Eilish (Billie Eilish - Finneas O'Connell) There's a fascinating moment in The World's A Little Blurry, the documentary about Eilish, where she and O'Connell are up against a deadline and need to finish their Bond entry on a tour bus. O'Connell is pushing her to up the drama in her vocal but she's resistant, saying, "I hate belting." But you can't have a classic Bond song without it and when she lets it rip after the intimate, almost conversational opening, it's thrilling. Hans Zimmer's orchestration and Johnny Marr's guitar hit the right notes, too, making for the best Bond song in decades. Further proof that a touch of darkness is an important part of the Bond sound world. Watch it live from the Brit Awards for a definitive performance. 

5. Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - Shirley Bassey (Don Black - John Barry) For Sean Connery's return to a role he had abdicated for the prior film, Barry returned to first principles, bringing Bassey back for a turn that was nearly as fabulous as her first. Barry's arrangement adds some novel touches, too, like subtle wah wah guitar and driving electric bass.

6. Nobody Does It Better (1977) - Carly Simon (Marvin Hamlisch - Carole Bayer Sager) In which 70s schlock merchants put tongues firmly in cheek and come up a winner with a Bond theme that is all wide-lapeled romance. Many Bond songs prior were about the villain or hinged on the film title or plot, but has Hamlisch pointed out "It was time that Bond be pretentious enough and vain enough to have a song written about him." Also clever was the way they embedded the film title in the lyrics rather than the song title: "Like heaven above me/The spy who loved me..." Driven by a melody even Radiohead couldn't deny, the song was all over the radio after Roger Moore's third film hit cinemas. 

7. Thunderball (1965) - Tom Jones (John Barry - Don Black) Something must be in the water in Wales as the only man who could almost beat Bassey at her own game was also Welsh. While it's a somewhat formulaic follow-up to Goldfinger, Barry and Black still deliver excitement - and Jones blows the vocal OUT. Originally the theme song was supposed to be called Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and sung by Bassey, who was then replaced(!) by Dionne Warwick. The ensuing kerfuffle died down when the song was scrapped for Jones' Thunderball.

8. Moonraker (1979) - Shirley Bassey (John Barry - Hal David) It will take more than time to dim a voice like Bassey's, which sounds unchanged from the 60s in this, her third and final theme for the series. Unlike the overstuffed disaster onscreen, Barry's arrangement is restrained (for him, anyway) and a better  evocation of starlit space than all the special effects by Industrial Light & Magic.

9. From Russia With Love (1963) - Matt Monroe (Lionel Bart) Although the second film in the series opens with an instrumental theme, having this song in the midst of the film must have given the producers ideas about how a song with the same title as the movie could work to boost the brand. Sung by Matt Monroe, one of several Frank Sinatra soundalikes around in the early 60s, it has an intriguing mixture of gravitas and romance. 

10. A View To A Kill (1985) - Duran Duran (Duran Duran - John Barry) For Moore's last outing as 007, the 80s superstars collaborated with Barry and Chic's Bernard Edwards and created the most successful theme song of the franchise's first 30 years. It's also one of their best songs, a minor-key verse that's pure Bond abutting a chorus that has all the pompadoured bombast that defined new romantic Euro-pop at its peak. The use of digital sampling (by John Elias) made the song sound futuristic while emulating the quick-cutting style that's a signature of the Bond films.

11. Skyfall (2012) - Adele (Adele Adkins - Paul Epworth) A decade on, my antipathy towards Adele has subsided enough for me to hear that this is a pretty good Bond song. It has some of the mystery and drama we've come to expect and incorporates the chord changes of the James Bond Theme in a nice homage to the history of the series. The lyrics also do a decent job of telegraphing the somber mood of Craig's third film. But I will also say that Adele's bizarre relationship to vowel sounds ("skyfoal" "crumbowls" instead of "skyfall" and "crumbles," etc.) can still drive me crazy and putting the song at this point of the list is more a reflection of the degradation to come than the actual quality of the song.

12. For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Sheena Easton (Bill Conti - Mike Leeson) As this is unequivocally Moore's finest Bond film, it's too bad John Barry was a tax exile at the time and couldn't be involved. The song isn't a total disaster, but the complete lack of sensuality in Easton's vocals and the glittery arrangement put it too deeply into "adult contemporary" territory for my taste. 

13. We Have All The Time In The World (1969) - Louis Armstrong (John Barry - Hal David) For On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the first Bond film without Sean Connery, the producers returned to the From Russia With Love template of opening with an instrumental theme and including a song midway through the film. As it is the song most closely associated with George Lazenby's one shot as 007, I included it instead of the opening theme, which is a better piece of music. This breezy ditty with Herb Alpert-esque trumpet is pleasant enough but has few of the sonic hallmarks of classic Bond. While its cavity-inducing sweetness is somewhat mitigated by Armstrong's gruff vocals and the fact that it hinges on the death of Bond's first wife (played by Diana Rigg), it remains pure sap. It's not much a song and ends in a curiously unsatisfying fashion, but Satch always delivers, thus it's not ranked lower.

14. The Living Daylights (1987) - A-ha (Pal Waaktaar - John Barry) Sounding more than ever like the poor man's Duran Duran, this clanky retread succeeds mainly thanks to Barry's strings and stabs of brass. Some things never go out of style, unlike the cheap synths employed by the band. It's a little stiff, just like Dalton's first time as Bond. It's also not the valedictory one would have desired for Barry's last film in the series. He died in 2011 and, while there were moments where it seemed like he would return, he never scored another Bond movie. The good news about that is that he was freed up to compose the music for Dances With Wolves, one of the greatest soundtracks of all time.

15. License To Kill (1989) - Gladys Knight (Narada Michael Walden - Jeffrey Cohen - Walter Afanasieff - John Barry - Leslie Bricusse - Anthony Newley) I'm not sure what Frankenstein legalities caused the inclusion of Barry and co. in the credits. Based on its unremittingly blandness, however, maybe it would have been better if they had actually written the song. Knight's vocal is fine but Walden and Afanasieff have proved time and again that when you drain the rhythm and blues from R&B, there ain't much left. Pity, as this was Dalton's best attempt at being Bond.

16. The World Is Not Enough (1999) - Garbage (David Arnold - Don Black) For Pierce Brosnan's entertaining but forgettable third outing as Bond, Arnold again played the role of a souped-up high-tech John Barry, something he does fairly well. So it makes sense that the theme would have a retro resonance, with a huge orchestra, including a tsunami of harps, and some twangy guitar. I might have ranked it higher were it not for Shirley Manson's underwhelming vocal.  A better song, while not quite title sequence material, was Arnold and Black's Only Myself To Blame, sung by Scott Walker in a stunning return to his 60s croon, which was used over the end credits. 

17. All Time High (1983) - Rita Coolidge (John Barry - Tim Rice) Even lyricist Rice conceded this was "not one of the most exciting Bond songs" and it's mainly pure inoffensiveness that keeps it from ranking lower. An abandoned cover version by Bassey shows that it could have been better with a stronger voice than Coolidge's - but not by much. Funny that they felt Octopussy was an appropriate name for a movie but not a song!

18. GoldenEye (1995) - Tina Turner (Bono - The Edge) On paper, post-comeback Turner is a perfect candidate to sing a Bond theme. However she sounds unengaged with this song, which is melodically barren, and delivers a wooden performance. Nellee Hooper does what he can as producer to bring some Bond class to the proceedings, but seems unable to develop the weak material beyond his initial ideas. Not a promising fanfare to introduce Pierce Brosnan as 007.

19. The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) - Lulu (John Barry - Don Black) Barry returns after McCartney's triumph and gives us...this? Even with the trademark strings and brass combined with stinging guitar, the tempo is all wrong and Lulu can't seem to find a consistent way to master her voice's limitations to deliver the song. The movie wasn't much better.

20. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) - Sheryl Crow (Sheryl Crow - Mitchell Froom) It took them 15 years, but the Bond production team finally found a singer with less danger and mystery than Sheena Easton. The song itself has some good elements but Crow's singing lacks any semblance of a personality. In a bizarre twist, the original theme, written by David Arnold with Don Black and sung with panache by K.D. Lang, was relegated to the end credits. Arnold overall did a fine job with the music, but the misstep with the song only made it sting more that Barry couldn't agree on a fee to return to the franchise for Brosnan's second film.

21. Writing's On The Wall (2015) - Sam Smith (Sam Smith - Jimmy Napes) Like Crow's entry, this song has a smidgen of promise as a Bond theme, but Smith is a dreary singer with an especially egregious falsetto. To make matters worse, the producers rejected two songs by Radiohead, the epic Man Of War and the moody Spectre, either of which would have made a stunning and distinctly different opener for the film. Unfortunately, the Oscars rewarded this kind of behavior by giving a statue to Smith's regrettable entry. 

22. You Know My Name (2006) - Chris Cornell (Chris Cornell - David Arnold) For all its histrionics, this was a disappointingly generic way to herald in Craig's triumphant debut as Bond, but Casino Royale was so good I didn't care.

23. Another Way To Die (2008) - Jack White and Alicia Keys (Jack White) While many criticized Quantum Of Solace, Craig's second Bond, I thought it was a brilliantly nasty follow-up to Casino Royale. This song, however, a just a mess, filled with "musical" ideas as wrongheaded as teaming up Keys and White, who coagulate like chalk and cheese. Feel free to skip!

24. Die Another Day (2002) - Madonna (Madonna - Mirwais Ahmadzaï) As much as I encourage innovation in the Bond universe, a techno parody by Madonna is not what I had in mind. Sheerly awful claptrap, ending this ranking in unnecessarily ignominious fashion! 

Many things are uncertain. But James Bond will be BACK - once they figure out who can follow Daniel Craig, that is. When it comes to the next theme song, I still maintain hope that Goldfrapp will get the nod, but there are several others, like Angel Olsen, Anika, or Jane Weaver who would do a great job. Who are you hoping to hear over a glamorous title sequence in the future?

Listen to the themes in chronological order here and my ranking in the playlist below. As the James Bond Theme is unranked, I put it at the bottom as a palate cleanser!

 

Note: Some quotes and information were taken from the booklet included in The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Limited Edition (1992), with track annotations by Steve Kolanjian. The picture above depicts John Barry in the studio with an orchestra.

The Beatles Thing

"But the Beatles thing is over," Paul McCartney declared in a Life Magazine interview 44 years ago this week. While it was not the official notice of the end, careful readers would have taken note of the finality of his statement and been seriously concerned. And it was true - privately the Fab Four had already determined that they would no longer continue as a group. But the Beatle thing is never really over, is it? Here's some thoughts on why that might be.

I can understand how easy it is to take The Beatles for granted. After all, my mom used to wake me up with a 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand, which puts them very nearly at the earliest point of my nurture - close enough that I now consider them part of my nature.

Perhaps they are so extraordinary that's it's easier to see them as part of the furniture, so to speak, than to try to grapple with what they really achieved. "The blues is a chair," John Lennon said, so he knew something about music as furniture, but unlike the blues, the universe of The Beatles was essentially created by four very young men who followed their (both creative and commercial) muses never suspecting - at least not until the end - that they were essentially creating a one-band genre.

A defining feature of that genre is that anything went - add a string quartet, put the tape on backward, strip it back to naked human anguish, get silly, sing in French, make a collage, base your lyrics on a poster or a box of chocolates or the Tibetan book of the dead, get angry, write songs, get folky, sing other people's songs, etc. That's why I always say you can use the Fab Four to get exposed to nearly everything music can do. Listening to their music can be the start of a love affair with music, one that the listener can pursue down countless avenues. "I like the way that song makes me feel - where else can I find that?"

This far along from their demise, people are still trying to parse The Beatles, to see where they fit alongside other musicians and separate the strands of what made them work. "How good were The Beatles as lyricists?" or "Where does George Harrison rank as a guitarist?" are typical starting points for articles or blog posts. In the first example, if you examine the lyrics in the cold light of the dissection table, you might find some of them wanting. Not as deep as Dylan, or as clever as The Kinks or The Who, or as dark as The Doors or The Rolling Stones - to name only some of their contemporaries. As for the second example, while his style is quite distinctive and his technique excellent, I wouldn't put George in my top five guitarists.

But the point is, they can't really be parsed. It was the hydra-headed foursome of them that made it all work and the unified quality of their output that astonishes. There is much we know now about the interpersonal difficulties they had, but that just makes it all the more remarkable. More than any other band, it is impossible to imagine The Beatles doing what they did with anybody other than John, Paul, George and Ringo. The dream of human unity - always just out of reach - is exemplified by their remarkable music. Even photographs of the four of them are inspiring.

"Not liking The Beatles is like not liking the sun," someone once wrote in Rolling Stone. While I believe that it takes all kinds to make a world, part of me agrees with that statement and maintains a mild suspicion of those who say flat out "I don't like The Beatles." Then again, being jaded by them might be worse, so dust off that musical furniture and try to listen to The Beatles as if you've never heard them before.

One, Two, Three, Four, Cough.


Then came Revolver. I got it for my birthday the year after the three 45's that started my collection. This was obviously a different proposition entirely from the Tommy soundtrack. Here was an album that took you through moods and past musical milestones you didn't know existed, ending with the ever-astonishing Tomorrow Never Knows. TNK, as the Beatle geeks call it, is built on a rhythm Ringo must have heard in a dream, as there was no precedent for that beat in rock & roll. Jerry-rigged on top are all sorts of drones and backward instruments. Then comes Lennon's voice, sounding (as he requested) like the Dalai Lama preaching from a mountain top, singing about the end of the beginning. For me, it was the beginning of the end...a large part of my life became devoted to music.

A couple of other things I love about this record are that outrageous countdown and cough that lead into Taxman--talk about cojones. That song also features one of the most blistering guitar solos in the Beatles catalog. The solo is so brilliant they simply repeat it on the outro, as if to give you another chance to hear it. How amazing to learn that Paul was behind that stinging lead! And how generous of George to give him the spotlight the first and last time he was given the lead track on a Beatles album. It could have been Paul exercising his droit de seigneur but I like my idea better.

It would be many years before I would discover the British version of Revolver, which ups the factor of greatness by many times (Doctor Robert, I'm Only Sleeping - killer!), but nonetheless I was hooked on music and records forever. As soon as I was old enough, I began going to record stores as often as possible and amassing records at a torrid pace. Now I have hundreds of pieces of black plastic, shiny silver discs and mp3 files. Let's just say that my wife is VERY understanding!

What record sucked you in and made you a music fanatic? Does that music still fascinate you?


Next time: The year in disappointments.