Last month, it was revealed that Billie Eilish would be the youngest-ever person to record a theme song for a James Bond movie, No Time To Die, the 25th in the franchise. And now, seemingly faster than a bullet fired from a Walther PPK, here it is…
“We’ve always wanted to write a James Bond theme song,” Eilish’s brother and co-writer, Finneas told the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast after news of the song was announced. “And you know, it’s a legendary franchise, so we had to convince a lot of people that we were the right choice. And then we had to write a song that everybody liked. So it was a hard-won process.”
Will this hit the target with Bond fans and join classics such as Goldfinger, by Shirley Bassey, or Thunderball, by Tom Jones, and highly regarded modern efforts by the likes of Chris Cornell (You Know My Name, from Casino Royale) or Adele (Skyfall, from, uh… Skyfall) or will it be relegated to the exploding volcano bases of history alongside Alicia Keys & Jack White’s Another Way To Die (from Quantum of Solace) or Sam Smith’s beyond dreary Writing’s On The Wall (from SPECTRE)…!?
I guess you’ll know your answer to that by now. As for me, I love it.
No Time To Die (the movie) is released in April (date according to country).
Not much to say about this one except here’s the music video released to promote the digital release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which will probably be the greatest thing you’ll see today.
Starring the entire Guardians Vol 2 crew (and director James Gunn himself) in 70s kitchen foil disco suits along with The Hoff, there’s even room for the obligatory Stan Lee cameo.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 lands on digital on August 8th and Blu-ray & 4K on August 22nd.
Welcome to the latest in an occasional series of articles where I’ll be looking at the songs that have graced some of my favourite films through the years. Of course, since this is OODH, it’s unlikely I’ll be tackling anything from Grease or The Little Mermaid (fabulous as the Ashman & Menken tunes were in the latter).
The Green Slime is a truly wild piece of space opera which, like the previous entry in this series, The Last Dinosaur, was an American/Japanese co-production, here between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Toei. MGM provided the funding and script while Toei provided the film crew and location to shoot the film. In fact a third country was involved, as the storyline originated in Italy and was supposed to be part of Antonio Margheriti’s Gamma One tv movie series.
The script was written by William Finger (the co-creator, arguably the creator, of huge swathes of what we now recognise as the Batman mythos), Tom Rowe and Charles Sinclair, from a story by co-producer Ivan Reiner. The film was shot in Japan with a Japanese director and film crew, but a non-Japanese cast of Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel and Luciana Paluzzi.
The plot sees a group of scientists sent into space to destroy an asteroid on collison course with Earth. They return from their mission to the asteroid with an unwanted guest, a glowing piece of space fungus which mutates and multiplies into the screeching, tentacled green slime monsters of the title.
It’s camp, goofy and madly entertaining, and never less than breathlessly directed by Kinji Fukasaku, who also made the seminal Battles Without Honor and Humanity film series (1973-74) and the controversial Battle Royale (2000).
The music score was written by Toshiaki Tsushima, but Charles Fox re-scored much of the film for its release in United States. Fox, of course, was co-composer (along with Norman Gimbel) of Grammy winning hit song Killing Me Softly With His Song, and created the famous theme tune for Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman TV series (“In your satin tights, fighting for your rights…”).
And it’s the theme song for The Green Slime which brings us here today. Written by Fox and produced, arranged & performed by surf music pioneer Richard Delvy, the song gives us outré lyrics such as:
“What can it be; what is the reason?
Is this the end to all the seasons?
Is this just something in your head?
Would you believe it when you’re dead?
You’ll believe it when you find
something screaming across your mind …green slime!”
Once heard, never forgotten, this song will worm its way into your psyche like… well… green slime. Enjoy!
out of dave's head 