- Song/Theme: Live and Let Die
- Created by: Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, George Martin
- Performers: Paul McCartney/Wings
- Who is it about?: Unclear
- What's it about?: When you got a job to do you got to do it well, you got to give the other fella hell
With the (almost) final departure of Sean Connery as Bond, the film series got a new leading man. Live and Let Die retained the misogyny and doubled down on the racism, pitting Bond against Black people in general in a host of stereotypes from drug dealers, to voodoo, to New Orleans jazz, to petty dictators who lust after innocent white women. That the film is full of entertaining sequences and wild ideas adds to its problems by being seductively likeable, as does the sense that it really doesn't understand its own problems. There's always a sense of a gloriously better film waiting to break out aided by Yaphet Kotto's performance as the main villain and his trio of hench-people Mr Whispher, Tee Hee and Baron Samedi. You can see elements of a film with a Black writer and director in which Bond and the British Empire ultimately lose that would have been genius but which could never have been made as a Bond film.
And then, of course, there is the song.
Bond's first attempt at a rock song is a risky move but the creative choice was in pretty safe hands. Legendary producer George Martin had previously worked on several of the films including producing the title theme of Goldfinger. However, combining Martin's orchestral arrangement with his long-time collaborator Paul McCartney made for some musical alchemy.
The song itself really should sound disjointed. It starts with a sweet piano melody sing by McCartney. I say "sweet" but the lyrics have a weary, almost condescending cynicism:
"When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say "Live and let live"
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever changing world in which we're living
Makes you give in and cry"
https://genius.com/Paul-mccartney-and-wings-live-and-let-die-lyrics
Up to this point, it ostentatiously does not sound like the previous Bond themes. The lyrics then hit the title and the song's thesis and all hell breaks loose.
"Say live and let die"
You can't say that phrase without hearing the band and orchestra blasting away. George Martin's score takes over, providing a musical preview of the action sequences to come. Having shaken the audience around, we then get a short break into a different reggae pastiche. The lyrics continue to explain the thesis. You have a job to do and other people get in the way and you've just got to give them hell just to get by.
The reggae break takes us back to the orchestra and the orchestra takes us back to a more resigned version of McCartney recapping the opening statement as a conclusion. This time, the different musical elements come back together as a synthesis of what proceeded, stating to the audience you may have thought this was a crazy bunch of stuff but it all works together. Which, of course, it all does.
You can pretty much go home after that, because the song itself has already taken you a dramatic experience with a series of acts and scenes and action sequences. It feels like theatre even without the visuals and yet, if you dive into it, you find not so much of a dramatic structure but an essay structure. It starts with an abstract that outlines the claims that will be made, it has three paragraphs of argument and then reaches a conclusion that re-states the claim made in the abstract.
Other Bond songs will try to repeat the contrasting sections but other Bond songs aren't a conscious echo of the Beatles at the height of their power. McCartney would have other post-Beatles hits but I think it is safe to say Live and Let Die is the strongest one.
It would be remiss of me to not discuss the other versions. Guns & Roses had a significant hit with their more rock version of the song which demonstrated how well the song works dissoaciated from the film. Yet, an even better take on the song is the soul/cabaret version song by B.J.Arnau in the club scene in the film. The arrangement smooths over the contrast between the main acts in the title theme, highlighting how the whole thing is far more cohesive. Well worth a listen to.
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