Next up in our John Barry week in #Johnuary is You Only Live Twice, the 5th Bond film in the series.
You Only Live Twice is an example of one of John Barry’s songs that is heavier on the strings than the brass. The intro is typical Barry Bond strings. It’s got that floaty, nostalgic feel that several Bond tunes have. And then quickly it introduces the wooden xylophone percussion sounds at 0:20 that evoke the Japanese element of the film.
There’s an instrument that appears every so often in track which sounds almost like a high pitched harmonica doing a downwards scale and for some reason it makes me think of the theme tune to the Huckleberry Finn TV show.
Nancy Sinatra had the honours here, like the track, her voice and performance is very good but doesn’t quite have the power of other Bond title performances.
I do enjoy this tune but I think it will be rank fairly low compared to other Barry tracks at the end of the week. It’s very nice and relaxing but there’s no real climax to it.