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November 15, 2023 18 mins

James Bond themes were handled by soulful or sultry vocalists in the decade since 1963’s “From Russia With Love.” Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and even Louis Armstrong had taken turns singing themes and secondary themes for the films. The Broccoli family who produces the James Bond franchise expected nothing less when they asked Paul McCartney to write the theme for “Live and Let Die.” What they didn’t expect was for him to perform it too. And for the song—1973’s “Live and Let Die”—to become the most popular theme of the series thus far.

“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.

The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman and Scott Rodger.

Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul molldoin. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.

(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics
show page in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot Fm,
slash Plus. He is McCartney. Paul McCartney, a commander, a hero,

(00:56):
a man of action, everything you've ever loved in a
bondlevel em calls in from the secret Intelligence Service with
a mission. A commission to write a song before it's
too late or thrilled, more excitable, more chill. Agent McCartney

(01:19):
receives his technical materials, a title, a novel for inspiration
and more. At his piano in London, he embarks on
his perilous journey live and let guy, I'm Paul muldoon

(01:58):
and I've been fortunate to spend time with one of
the greatest songwriters of our era.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
And will you look at me? I'm going to I'm
actually a performer.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book Looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Oh actually I'm a songwriter. My god, Well, let that
crept of homie.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music in this episode Live and Let Die.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
When you young in your heart? What an open book
used to say? Little let me.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Live and Let Die. Released in nineteen seventy three, is
the eighth film in the James Bond franchise, the first
the Roger Moore era. It had all the components of
the classic spy thriller, dry martinis, clever gadgets, car chases.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Roger More has James Bond.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Double O seven didn't live and lacked bon.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
McCartney may not have been an international secret agent, but
he did have a fair amount in common with Double
O seven.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Did you still have the Aston Martin? In nineteen seventy
three or.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
I moved through a couple of cars? It was the
very first Bond film. Dr No Worth he had and
asked him, thank you, you'll be using this Aston Martin
dB five with modifications.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Now pay attention please. It was only later and I
put it together. It was so obvious.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
You know why I got on Aston anyway. I've had
a few nice cars sports cause I once had a Lamborghini,
you know, just for the sort of thrill of having
a sports car.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
George was the real car person.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
George ended up with a McLaren, which you couldn't use
on Britain with his speed limits. You know, George was
a very sports car orientated. In fact, he was horrified
to hear that I still sometimes used the boss public transport.
You will you go on the bus is still because

(04:38):
he so left that behind.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
On top of owning an Aston, Martin McCartney always harbored
a secret desire to write a Bond song.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
It was always a sneaky ambition to write a Bond
song because in some ways I like to see myself
one portion of myself as a jobbing writer. You know,
you require a harm for the Queen's wedding. I mean,

(05:11):
dear Elizabeth, oh greatness sunny running off the land then.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Known in Philip will take your hand.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
So putting that aside, they quid of that for a
lot of people was and still is actually the Bond song.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's you you, You've written the Bond song. It's a
bit of an accolade.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Since the early days, part of the allure of the
Double O seven franchise had been the Bond song, a
catchy hit from the hottest pop star of the.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Time, Godinger.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Everyone from Shirley Bassey to Billie Eilish has made their contributions.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Okay, So in this case, our record guy who was
handling the Beatles Apple Records, he knew somebody connected with
the Bond franchise, and so one day we were just
chatting and he said, you don't have any interest in

(06:32):
doing a Bond film, do you? Yeah, I'd probably be interested,
you know, I'm not trying to look too enthusiastic.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, I said, yeah, sure.

Speaker 5 (06:46):
But if the seven changing world in which were living
makes you give me that cram.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
So Living Lida.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
When the producers approached McCartney, the script for the film
had not yet been finished. So McCartney got hold of
a copy of Ian Fleming's nineteen fifty four novel Live
and Let Die, And.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
It's a real page turner. So I just spent the
afternoon just sitting down and making myself know what the
book is about. So then I knew when I sat
down to write the song, I knew what the idea
would be. Now you used to say live and let live.
Now you say living let die. And I didn't want

(07:37):
it to be so you've got a gun and now
you go killing people, So living and die. I just
wanted it to be let it go, don't worry about
it when you've got problems and everything, just live and
let die, live and just let it go. And so
once I had that, it kind of almost wrote itself.

(07:59):
When you were young, in your heart was an open book.
You used to say living and live. You know you did,
you know you did it.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
But if this ever changing world in which we live in,
you give in a cry living the time, you know,
to help with.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Him very much, thinking how is this going to land? Well,
we know in the Bond film he's going to come
out and sort of shoot, it's gone at the screen
and it's all going to go red and drippy, and
there's going to be a beautiful girl in a very

(08:35):
scant costume.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
And so I see where I am.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
This is the world I'm in, sitting at the piano
in his London House, McCartney had a draft finished in
a single afternoon. He brought it to his longtime collaborator

(09:00):
George Martin, who was producing the soundtrack for the film,
and together they finested into a bold, bond worthy hit.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
And he'd said, yeah, we'll come over, and I said, okay,
so go over and then i'd go when you were
young in your open and show him the chords.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
And then I'd say, and then I've got this da
da dada, but this is like the sort of central
rifft to it.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
And then we just we talked and he said it'd
be good to go off into BONDI and arrangements, and
so I left that completely to him. All the sort
of after the rift was played, there's a central middle
instrumental bit which was pure George.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
And I was very happy with that. So it was
it was a good experience.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
They recorded it in George Martin's studio above Oxford Circus,
and then George jetted off to the Caribbean with a
demo stashed in his briefcase.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
In those days, you'd have an ascetate, a little pressing
of the record, and George went out to the Bahamas
or somewhere where they were filming it, and they were
on the beach somewhere, so he organized to bring a
little record player and this disc and he played it
to Kobbe Broccoli who said, he said, that's nice, George,

(10:59):
that's a nice demo.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
When are you going to make the finished record? George said,
that is it.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Apparently the producers had imagined that McCary would write the
song for someone else to perform. In fact, there's a
scene in the film where the song is covered by
the soul singer bj or Not.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
But yep, this ever changing world in which we live
in makes you give it.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
A crown.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Instead. McCartney's rock vocals were a breath of fresh air
to the franchise's songwriting tradition.

Speaker 6 (11:40):
Now you know, there might be some who would have
questions about the idea of writing a song to order,
a song to fulfill a particular task. That's obviously not.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
A I like that.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well, I like it because I do the other way
as well. I wouldn't like to just write to order,
but I like.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
Seeing as I say, I'm as Troubadour and I've got
my little guitar, and I'm in a field and I'm
writing about the stream and daffodils and the sunshine and
whatever's caring to me. I like that very much, and
I think that's mainly what I do. But then occasionally

(12:31):
something will come along, well, some would you like to
write for a thinking a film, Bond film, for instance,
and I will.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Be yeah, just kind of. I'm an enthusiast, so it'll
just kind of excite me.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Oh, could I do that?

Speaker 4 (12:50):
I'll would go And I nearly always agree to these
things before I've really thought them out, because.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Our enthusiast he is.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
Yeah. I enjoy the process trying to come up with
something that will fit the brief. Some people, you say,
don't like to do that. It can be a very
big challenge.

Speaker 6 (13:11):
I mean, it's really just an extension of some notion
of the songwriter as having a place in our in
our culture, you know, in which there is a job
to be done and it's a job of work, and

(13:32):
that's perfectly reasonable way for a song to come into existence.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
I like to think of it like that.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Sometimes when you got a job to do, you got
to do it well, you know.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Whilst I didn't rate it too much alongside like from
Russia with love Goldfinger, yeah, which I know were very Bondian.
I wasn't sure where the mine was, but a lot
of people put it on their lists and put it
top of the lists. Actually a Bond song, so.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
It was the first rock and roll Bonds. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, Living Let Die is likely the only Bond song
to be covered by Guns N' Roses, who released their
own version in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
I thought it was pretty good. Actually, I was more
amazed than they would do it. It's not a young
American group.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
And the interesting thing was that my kids went to
school and they would say, my dad wrote that this
is no they didn't it's gone some Roses, so nobody
would ever believe them. But yeah, for a while it
was just conce ross. But I was very happy that
they've done it. I always like people doing my songs.

(15:21):
I don't know about you, but if someone decides to
recite one of your poems, it's a great compliment.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
You know, of course it is. In my case, it pays.
How do you know it doesn't play in my kids?

Speaker 5 (15:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Paul McCartney's own version of the song had been an
instant hit It went to number nine on the British charts,
number one on the American Until then, the highest numbers
reached by a Bond theme.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, it's a big show for us. It's extremely exciting.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
We have pyrotechnics, extremely dangerous.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
It can get a little hot up there, yeah, I
must say.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
But our pyrotechnics guy, who in whom we trust, is
called Shaky.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
There's a clue.

Speaker 4 (16:12):
And the thing I think I like most about it
is that as as we know the explosions about to happen,
the big first explosion, so we often look at the people,
particularly in the front row, who are like blithely going
along and living and you just it's great to just
watch them. They look at each other and oh my god,

(16:36):
they're shocked.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
You deserved well.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
In with we live in makes it so living there.

(17:08):
We did it nearly days and there was.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
The explosion, and I suddenly noticed as we started it
as like a ninety year old woman, very old in
the front row.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
I've suddenly got my shit. We're going to kill her.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
There's no book stopping I can't stop the song saying
cover your ears love. So it comes to it and
I kind of like I kind of look Away, Living Boom,
and I look back to her.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Thinking God, and she is loving it. So yeah, when
you got you gotta do it well. You've got to
give the.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Live and let Die from the single released by Wings
in nineteen seventy three. In the next episode, mystery tours

(18:25):
were cheap, one day bus trips out of the city
for working class families. Some of them were magical McCartney

(18:46):
A Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia,
NPL and Pushkin Industries.
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