Today is Bond day, as the 22nd James Bond motion picture, Quantum of Solace, is released. You can’t fail to have noticed that the film is out what with every radio brodcast, television programme, and magazine seemingly having a Bond feature, so here’s my contribution to the 2008 007 dossier of hype.
This morning, The Guardian highlighted songs that could have been Bond themes (note they weren’t should-have-beens). Among the rejected songs by luminaries such as Blondie, Johnny Cash, the Pet Shop Boys, and unbelievably, Ace of Base, is this easy-listening groove from UK poppers Saint Etienne.
I’d forgotten that this song existed, even though it was on the band’s fan club release, Built on Sand, re-issued in January as part of the group’s four-disc collection, Boxette. Recorded in 1997, and submitted for consideration as the theme song for Pierce Brosnan’s Bond flick of the same name, this version is a demo (there was another tune, too, on the same long player, called Blofeld Buildings).
In the sleeve notes for Boxette, Bob Stanley states that the master tape was stolen by Brosnan, who claimed it was ‘seven times better than Sheryl Crow’ (Crow eventually sung the theme for the film). See what you think. It may not have been sharp-shooting enough for 1990s Bond, but it would have made a fitting opening credits theme for any one of the Connery-era 007 pictures from the 1960s.
