Paul McCartney wrote his iconic Bond song, “Live and Let Die,” without having seen the script.
In his book The Lyrics, McCartney spoke about writing the iconic rock song on instinct, with very little knowledge about the plot.
“Writing a Bond song is a bit of an accolade, and I always had a sneaking ambition to do it,” he shared. “Ron told me the film was called Live and Let Die. The screenplay wasn’t finished at that point, so I got the Ian Fleming book, and it’s a real page-turner.”
The music icon was originally approached to make music for the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever. While McCartney had no idea what the Roger Moore film was about, he had an idea for the Bond theme.
“I didn’t want the song to be, ‘You’ve got a gun. Now go kill people. Live and let die.’ That’s just not me,” he shared. “I wanted it to be, ‘Let it go. Don’t worry about it. When you’ve got problems, just live and let die.’ Once I had that thought in my head, the song almost wrote itself,” the Beatle explained.
McCartney and Wings recorded “Live and Let Die! at the end of the sessions for 1973’s Red Rose Speedway. It was produced by his frequent Beatles collaborator, George Martin. While Eon was keen to have McCartney write the theme song, the production company’s producer Harry Saltzman wanted Shirley Bassey or Thelma Houston to record the final version.
“The film producers found a record player. After the record had finished they said to George, ‘That’s great, a wonderful demo. Now when are you going to make the real track, and who shall we get to sing it?’ And George said, ‘What? This is the real track!’” McCartney explained, per Far Out Magazine.
McCartney would only allow “Live and Let Die” to be used in the Bond flick if it was the Wings version of the track, something that Eon eventually agreed to.
Upon release, “Live and Let Die” was the most successful Bond theme up to that point, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became the first Bond theme song to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and won Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist at the 16th Annual Grammy Awards.
