Authors discuss 007 title songs on NPR

Cover for The James Bond Songs

The authors of the new book The James Bond Songs Songs were interviewed on NPR’S WEEKEND EDITION today.

Among their conclusions: Bond songwriters sometimes are inhibited from doing their best work, Goldfinger still sets the standard and SPECTRE’s title song generated mixed results.

Here’s a sampling.

On Goldfinger: “This is the song that everybody’s been trying to copy ever since, and it’s the standard that listeners hold these songs up to on whatever level of consciousness,” co-author Adrian Daub told NPR’s Scott Simon.

On the quality of Bond songwriting: “(W)hen you’re writing a Bond song, or singing a Bond song, that you have to feel yourself compromise — kind of pulled in two or three directions at once,” co-author Charles Kronengold said in the interview.

“I mean, if you’re a lyricist, having to use a ridiculous word like “Moonraker” or “Thunderball” is not going to make your life any easier or pleasanter. It’s not necessarily going to be your best work, so the records don’t necessarily add up,” he said.

On Live And Let Die’s autobiographical elements for Paul McCartney:  “And the idea that Paul McCartney is going to be still around, still making music, but not with The Beatles — what does that mean?” Kronengold said. “Why does he even come to work? Why does he have to do this, and what’s the point of it? And the song brings that out in a really nice way.”

On SPECTRE’s “Writing’s On The Wall”: “Well, not enough menace and danger for our taste,” Kronengold said. “It seems like they forgot about the swagger and the bite that the best Bond songs have.”

On the other hand, Daub said: “(T)here’s one part of it that we really like, and it seems to be the one that everyone else hates — which is when you get to the chorus….The song builds to this amazing crescendo, and then just kind of ends with this whimper.”

You can read an edited transcript of the interview BY CLICKING HERE. The full audio from the interview will be made available there starting about 12 noon New York time.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in the book (subtitled Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism): CLICK HERE for the Amazon.com listing.

UPDATE: If you click to the website, the full audio of the story is now up. It runs 6:21.