The John Barry week in #Johnuary continues with the next Bond film, From Russia With Love.
From Russia With Love is a funny one because Barry didn’t actually write the theme tune. That was composed by Lionel Bart and sung by Matt Monro. Here it is out of interest…
Barry did, however, write two new tracks as part of his overall soundtrack which would become distinctive.
James Bond is Back
First is a very brief “James Bond is Back” piece which he incorporated into the instrumental version of the title music. I think it’s the first 10 seconds of this title clip here. Barry also segues this instrumental version of the title track into the James Bond Theme near the end.
007 Theme
When Barry was assigned to work on From Russia Love he composed an alternative James Bond theme which is featured in four other Bond films (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker), called the “007 Theme”.
This is an interesting piece. It feels very much like a music score piece and not a song in its own right. You can just imagine it playing while Bond is snooping round a evil genius’ lair.
It starts in a way that echoes elements of the main Bond theme and it’s ‘dum-di-di-dum-dum’ bit, as described in the previous post. It also includes a bit of surf rock guitar later on as well, which is in keeping with the origin of the original Bond theme.
Barry had actually accompanied the film crew to Istanbul as he wanted to try to include some local Turkish-inspired music into the film. He didn’t find anything that he felt was suitable though.
There’s another nice arrangement of the James Bond Theme in the track ‘James Bond with Bongos’.
Tune in for the next post where Barry works on his first full soundtrack including title song.