The Bond songs that should have been but were replaced at the last minute!

In this series, we take a look at the songs recorded for the James Bond films that were binned and replaced with something else. The how’s, the when’s and the why’s will all be answered. Some of the songs were featured elsewhere in their respective films, others were completely dumped. In this part we look at the song that should have accompanied the title sequence to…

Quantum Of Solace

Daniel Craig had acquitted himself admirably with ‘Casino Royale’. The box office returns confirmed that. So with haste and speed, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson put the next film into production less than a year later. The audience had embraced this new Bond, so they will want more. A budget of $180m, $40m more than ‘Casino’, was allotted to the film and a screenplay and direction more in the style of ‘Tomorrow Never Dies‘, with plenty of action and explosions, was created.

For the first time a direct sequel to the preceding film was fashioned, making reference to that film as well as reoccurring characters from that story as Bond was now in pursuit of his first ‘eco friendly’ villain, Dominic Greene, eerily played by Mathieu Amalric. Bond endures more heartbreak as his friend Rene Mathis is murdered by Greene’s henchmen and an initially very frosty and hostile M as he makes his way across Mexico, Bolivia and Chile, destroying everything in his path with some superb Ken Adam-esque sets that recall the great production design days of the 1960’s and 70’s.

For the score, David Arnold was back for his fifth 007 music duties. Now very much part of the family, David followed in John Barry’s footsteps in creating mood and tension when required as well as those more refined, classy moments to accompany a more beautiful moment, either as a location shot or with an intimate moment. “Quantum Of Solace” was a difficult title for a song, so this one was going to tax even the most veteran of songwriters. But a number of intriguing possibilities manifested themselves as potential song to be heard over the main title sequence, oddly not designed by Daniel Kleinman this time around.

One potential and indeed a surefire winner was the legendary Shirley Bassey, who had already sung THREE title songs. After an absence of nearly thirty years, would she be back? The song in question, “No Good About Goodbye”, was Bondian by production and design. Written by Arnold and Don Black (“Diamonds Are Forever”), this was just what 007 fans had been waiting for. But it was not to be and the track was dropped. It would eventually turn up on Bassey’s 2009 album “The Performance”.

But there was another song that would surface with even more clout. Swedish singer Eva Almer, little known in 2008, had co-written and performed the song “Forever – I Am All Yours” with producer Chris Wolf, as homage to Bassey herself. And they did a pretty good job! This was surely the best bet for the main titles song…see for yourself:

But, as we know, it was not to be and instead it was decided to go with two ‘hip and happening’ chart stars of the day to deliver the song that would become the film’s ‘anthem’. Another controversial and polarising tune would eventually be written and produced by The White Strips Jack White, and performed with American singer Alicia Keys. “Another Way To Die” was ‘the’ Bond sound of 2008 and when released prior to the film itself, it was met with lukewarm feelings by film and 007 aficionados alike. The song was, however, successful, peaking at No.9 in the UK and charting top ten around most of Europe. It was not a huge success Stateside, making No.81 there. Compared with the likes of “Forever – I am All Yours” and “No Good About Goodbye”, it doesn’t rank as one of the more memorable Bond tunes and with hindsight, it could have been very different.

‘Quantum Of Solace’ was another huge hit at the box office, taking over $589,000,000 at the box office, only slightly less than ‘Casino’, despite some mixed reviews and some micky taking of the title of the film itself, which was in fact a Fleming original, taken from a short story that featured in his collection titled For Your Eyes Only in 1960. So here is the title sequence that we were introduced to and all know with “Another Way To Die” ripping its way through the credits: