Ranked: Every James Bond Theme Song

By Jessica Kiang and Oliver Lyttelton | The Playlist September 28, 2015 at 3:00PM

Most movie franchises don't make a big deal about theme songs. And that’s probably a good thing —we’re not sure we could have dealt with One Direction singing a title tune for “Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb” or an original Grimes track for “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” But there’s one movie series that we couldn't imagine without its signature songs, and that’s the James Bond franchise.

The longest running continuous franchise in movie history is soon to return with "Spectre," and as has been the case for all but one of the 2 installments to date (plus upstart rival entry “Never Say Never Again”), it’s got a popular artist singing an original song over the title sequence —in this case, it's Sam Smith, with new track “Writing’s On The Wall.”

The latter debuted on Friday, and as self-styled connoisseurs of the Bond themes, we thought it might be a good time to look back at the now fifty-year history of 007 songs (excluding the instrumental themes to “Dr. No” and “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” although both are great), and put them in order from worst to best. How does Sam Smith fare? You can find out below, and argue with us in the comments section.

24. "Die Another Day" by Madonna from "Die Another Day" (2002)
Unless the twist of “Spectre” is that Sam Smith turns out to be playing Ernst Blofeld, “Die Another Day” is the only movie where the singer of the theme also acts in the movie, with Madonna pulling double duties. But given that she’s such a legendary pop star and can be an engaging movie presence in the right roles, it’s disappointing that both the song and the performance turned out to be dreadful. The former Ms. Ciccone stops a film that’s already pretty bad in its tracks when she cameos as a fencing instructor, but frankly, it had already gotten off to a bad start thanks to the title song, a dirge-y, glitchy electro number that’s less John Barry than a Fischerspooner B-side. And in a movie that features an invisible car, a ropey bad-guy role from Toby Stephens and some of the worst CGI ever seen in a major release, the bit in the song where Madonna breathily exclaims “Sigmund Freud, analyze this!” might be the low point.
Bond-iest Lyric: "For every sin, I'll have to pay / I've come to work, I've come to play / I think I'll find another way / It's not my time to go"

23. "The Man With The Golden Gun" by Lulu from "The Man With The Golden Gun" (1974)
With a title like that, the classic songwriting duo of John Barry and Don Black (a team that won an Oscar for the classic “Born Free”), and belting from Shirley Bassey-ish British chanteuse Lulu, you could be forgiven for thinking that “The Man With The Golden Gun” would be a home run. Then again, you’d think that a Bond film where the bad guy is Christopher Lee would be great too, and look how wrong that turned out. Barry’s least favorite of all the Bond themes (“It’s the one I hate most… it just never happened for me,” he would later say), and the only one never to chart as a single on either side of the Bond, it sounds like a theme song but never really comes together, seemingly restarting itself just when you think it might get near a chorus. Lulu’s vocal performance is pretty good —with the right song, she could have turned out something good— but this is otherwise understandably forgotten, bar the plentiful innuendo.
Bond-iest Lyric: Two-way tie between the double entendre heights of "He has a powerful weapon" and "Who will he bang?"

22. "Never Say Never Again" by Lani Hall from "Never Say Never Again" (1983)
Unofficial Bond movie “Never Say Never Again,” which saw Sean Connery return to the title role thanks to rights technicalities that let “Thunderball” co-writer Kevin McClory make a film with the character (and take sole rights to Spectre and Blofeld), sometimes comes across as a sort of equivalent of those unlicensed Turkish remakes of Superman or Spider-Man, and so it’s appropriate that the film’s song comes across as a bad cover version too. Sung by Lani Hall, a Latin pop star best known for collaborating with Sérgio Mendes, and written by “The Windmills Of Your Mind” composer Michel Legrand, it does have an earworm-y chorus, but the none-more-80s production makes it sound less like a Bond theme and more like something you’d hear in a hotel bar in a rundown European holiday resort, and Hall’s a pretty uncharismatic performer here. It arguably would have been better if they’d just used the Bee Gees song of the same name (which pre-dates the movie).
Bond-iest Lyric: "I just could be the woman to reach you / And teach you to never say never again."

21. "The Writing's On The Wall" by Sam Smith from "Spectre" (2015)
Is this song a joke? Seriously, IS THIS A JOKE? Fine, the Bond series has reinvented its lead many times over, tweaking the role for the times and the often songs reflect that —we have rolled with those punches over the years. But what does it say about our current times that we've reinvented the Bond song into a drippy, anodyne, nasal whinge without a single memorable hook delivered in a horrible, over-ornate falsetto full of airless little curlicues and bloodless vocal frillery that all the tryhard orchestration in the world can't compensate for? Maybe it's the Bond song we deserve for our hipsterism-will-eat-itself universe in which indiegogo-funded anti-gentrification organizations attack cereal cafes. But lord, this is not just neutered —it's positively castrated. Far from the bloody-steak, rip-your-heart-out, torch song lustiness that is part of the proud heritage of the Bond theme, this is the intro tune for a teetotal, gluten-allergic, lactose intolerant, vegan 007 who worries about being friendzoned and spends hours tweaking the filters on his instagram snaps.
Bond-iest Lyric: "A million shards of glass / That haunt me from my past / As the stars begin to gather/ And the light begins to fade" I guess, but whatever. Seriously, fuck this song.

20. "Another Way To Die" by Jack White & Alicia Keys from "Quantum of Solace" (2008)
Faced with the impossible task of trying to rhyme “Quantum Of Solace” in song, Daniel Craig’s second film dodged that particular bullet altogether by calling its theme “Another Way To Die,” sung by the curious pair involving quick-tempered faux-incesting Detroit guitar whiz Jack White and angel-voiced ivory-tinkler Alicia Keys (the first duet ever for a Bond theme). Appropriately for a movie with a title like an obscure legal loophole and where the plot revolves around the battle for utilities contracts, it’s also incredibly boring. White and Keys are an ill-matched duo, never really sounding like they’re singing the same song, and White’s gift for melody seems to have abandoned him here —it’s more Dead Weather than The White Stripes, if you know what we mean. And what’s worse: they passed up a far superior, much more literal version from “Attack The Block” helmer Joe Cornish.
Bond-iest Lyric: "Another ringer with the slick trigger finger / For Her Majesty / Another one with the golden tongue / Poisoning your fantasy" Class lyrics. Awful tune.

19. "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell from "Casino Royale" (2006)
Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond saw a new serious, gritty era of entries in the series, with Bourne-aping action, interlinked mythology and not much in the way of fancy gadgets or innuendo. To match it, the movie sought a “strong male voice” to signal this new man’s-man version of Bond, and ended up with the slightly odd choice of ratty-facial-haired Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. A veteran of the grunge era might not see like a natural fit to write and sing a 007 theme, but he and co-writer/composer David Arnold came up with a pretty decent song, far more memorable than the Keys/White number or the Sam Smith tune. The problem is that Cornell was entirely the wrong choice —his gravelly voice seems like it should be accompanying a “xXx” sequel rather than MI6’s finest.
Bond-iest Lyric: "Try to hide your hand / Forget how to feel / Life is gone with just a spin of the wheel"

18. "The Living Daylights"by a-ha from "The Living Daylights" (1987)
You don’t normally associate Scandinavian pop with James Bond (except for the reams of notes we’ve written for a Robyn-sung 007 theme — it’ll happen one day, dammit…), but clearly after a change of pace for the newfound Timothy Dalton era vai 1987’s “The Living Daylights,” producers went for Scandi-popsters a-ha, best known for “Take On Me.” It’s not a terrible song —fitting firmly into their bouffant-haired synth-pop formula (and clearly indebted to “Live And Let Die” to a degree), but it’s not hugely memorable either. Just as the Dalton movies, while not bad as such, never truly feel like 007 outings, the title song never feels like Bond. It’s technically the last theme co-written by John Barry, but it was apparently an unhappy process, and you can’t hear much of his influence in the finished song.
Bond-iest Lyric: "Set your hopes up way too high / The living's in the way we die." Forgettable though the song is, they come closest to getting that Bond tune essence in these lyrics which sound dramatic and sexy and make zero licks of sense.

17. "Moonraker" by "Shirley Bassey" from "Moonraker" (1979)
Few trilogy cappers close off the sequence satisfyingly, and unfortunately Shirley Bassey’s “Moonraker,” her third Bond theme after “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds Are Forever,” is more “Matrix Revolutions” than “Three Colors: Red.” Penned once again by John Barry, with words by “We Have All The Time In The World” lyricist Hal David (after Paul Williams’ lyrics were thrown out), the song was turned down by Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis and Kate Bush (!) before Bassey was brought in at almost the last possible minute. Unlike the movie, the song gets credit for not trying to go to some kind of sci-fi, “Star Wars”-aping place, but it’s by far the least memorable of Bassey’s three tracks as a song itself, and perhaps aware that she was the last resort, the Welsh singer sounds atypically disengaged when she belts it out. If you must play it, at least go for the hilariously incongruous disco remix that plays over the end credits.
Bond-iest Lyric: "Where are you? When will we meet? / Take my unfinished life and make it complete."