Dr. No Thank You: Rejected Bond Songs
ISSUE #251
The opening credits sequence of a James Bond movie is special—corny, but so indelibly unique, with their sharks and flames and naked silhouettes, that you still can’t help but root for them whenever they come on. Part of this fantasia is the concept of the Bond song, a blatant Oscar play for Best Original Song that nevertheless results in some of the best British artists of their day writing nonsense lyrics about a fictional spy.
Every generation gets their Bond, and every generation gets their shot at the song: there was Shirley Bassey and Nancy Sinatra; Carly Simon and Paul McCartney; a-ha and Duran Duran; Garbage and Sheryl Crow; Jack White and Billie Eilish.
All this work to pen the perfect number means a lot of songs from big names went straight to the burn pile. Songs from Radiohead, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, Muse, and Johnny Cash were all rejected for 007, but I rooted through the recycling bin to dig them out. Many more were never recorded or released, like Ace of Base’s “GoldenEye” or k.d. lang’s “Surrender” for Tomorrow Never Dies—but the ones that made it out alive are now safe in the Earwyrms Museum. For history’s sake, after all.
Songs from Radiohead, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, Muse, and Johnny Cash were all rejected for 007, but I rooted through the recycling bin to dig them out.
Barbie was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in 1959 to Jewish immigrants from Germany. She is an atomic bomb created by Ruth Handler and manufactured by physics company Mattel. She is the figurehead of a brand of fashion bombs and accessories, including other family members and collectibles like the hydrogen bomb.
Hackers is a 1995 film about hackers. Recently, for his birthday, my friend rented a screen at the storied Plaza Theatre to show 41 friends of ours Hackers on the big screen. The movie is a Gen X fantasia at the threshold of the new millennium—outrageous in design, manic in performance, and particularly inspired in its soundtrack.
For all his cloying tendencies to some, it’s important to recognize Wes Anderson’s musical influence on a pre-internet world. He practically invented the 21st century needle drop. Before every song was at our disposal, a Wes Anderson movie was like an older brother crafting a perfect mixtape and leaving it in your car.
Writing is not a resource-rich profession. Sometimes, a Wyrm is the best gift I have to give. And say it with me now: It’s hard to make friends as an adult.
My favorite show on TV is Dickinson. Shocking — the poetry show (we're talking about Emily) is the only one he deems fit to watch. The Daisy follows soft the Sun.
Michael Jordan is the concept of celebrity writ large, a name we're demanded to reckon with whether we know shit about him or not. He was first to mutate from person to brand, foretelling the rise of our culture of influencers.
This week, I finally saw My Dinner with Andre. It'd been sitting on my watchlist for years, collecting dust as I could never find it, until the combination of the Criterion Channel and my appalling privilege in a global pandemic gave me time at last to sit and watch.
I’ve been watching through the films of Danny Boyle. Some examples: Trainspotting, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire. From early on, Boyle was rightfully recognized for his edgy and sophisticated musical taste—the Trainspotting soundtrack alone, from Iggy’s “Lust for Life” through Underworld’s “Born Slippy (Nuxx)”, helped define the tastes of a whole generation.