Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die was a watershed moment in the Bond films in many respect. After the George Lazenby debacle of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Connery's one final (official) return in Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die gave us Roger Moore (I wonder if there is anyone else who has noticed the innuendo inherent in the name?! - think about it...) in the first of seven films, the longest run of any Bond actor to date. It was also the start of a period when the films became more silly and turned even more toward self parody, with Moore's innuendo laced take diminishing the last vestige of a hard edge that Connery maintained. Only when Timothy Dalton took over did the character manage to regain a little more credibility. Live and Let Diealso became the first Bond film, apart from Dr. No not to feature a score by John Barry.

George Martin is of course most famous as the producer of the Beatles and so it's fairly unsurprising that Paul and Linda McCartney were drafted in to provide the title song and a great song it is too. Evidently striving for something suitable for Bond yet clearly distinct from Barry, Live and Let Die is a schizophrenic mix of gentle opening, rocking orchestral bridge and a curious syncopated central passage. It ought to be a totally incoherent mixture, but the results are extremely effective and the orchestral bridge passage is incredibly exciting. McCartney's bracing delivery is more exciting than would be expected based on most of his Beatles work.

After a bizarre piece of ragtime/honky tonk source music, Bond Meets Solitaire gets the score off to a decent start with a pleasing hint of both the Bond and title song themes. Martin isn't afraid to use bits of the Bond theme from time to time, although usually a slow presentation of the ascending and descending opening phrase, rather than as an outright action theme. There are a couple of rather strange cues and bits of source music; Baron Samedi's Dance of Death is particularly odd and the performance of Live and Let Die in the Fillet of Soul track is about as far from the original as is possible. Sacrifice is a faintly goofy piece of source music which is presumably meant to be serious, but just sounds silly. A brief, but passably 70's rendition of the Bond Theme ends the album.

Live and Let Die, Hamlisch's Spy Who Loved Me and Conti's For Your Eyes Only all suffer from a pretty nasty 70's bent to many of the cues. The 'chukka' (I don't know how else to describe it) electric guitar licks that are laid over several sections give a nasty hint of disco, a musical style that has dated worse than any other I can think of. Fortunately, Martin's effort doesn't suffer too much and his orchestral writing is effective. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that the exciting orchestral bridge from the song isn't used as an action cue. In the hands of a more accomplished film composer to arrange and expand upon it, I suspect the results could have been quite spectacular. Engaging, but still not quite able to stand out amongst the more memorable Barry entries.