Top 10 James Bond Theme Songs

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I’m going to see the new James Bond movie Skyfall tomorrow — or today, depending on when this essay is published. (If future historians are reading this, let’s just state for the record that I’m seeing Skyfall on November 10, 2012. Also: hello future! Greetings from the past. So, what is the future like? Are robots prevalent? Is the world a utopia, or more of a dystopia type of thing? Also: sorry about global warming. Man, was Al Gore right about that or what?)

Anyway; so, moving on — I must confess that I’ve already made up a version of the Skyfall theme song in my head, since I have an ugly habit of making up theme songs for movies James Bond movies that I haven’t seen yet; and I’ve been wandering around in an excited trance singing this song, while forgetting that it’s not actually a real song. My song goes: Skyfa-aaaall, nothin’ but Skyfa-alll, nyew nyew nyew, and is in fact terrible, and is basically a rip-off of the Bill Murray Star Wars lounge-singer-song from SNL. (I haven’t heard the actual Adele “Skyfall” song yet, since I find my current level of Adele exposure to be sufficient unto my Adele-based-needs.)

Since I have seen every James Bond movie ever, with the odd exception of License to Kill for some reason, I thought I’d do a top ten list of the best James Bond theme songs, and I don’t want to hear it about my A-ha selection. (Also, and final parenthetical — I don’t know why-yyy I’ve seen all the James Bond movies, since they’re nearly all bad. There are only four good James Bond movies; which are, in order: Casino Royale, Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and The Living Daylights. The rest all range from “boring” to “unwatchable” — yes, even From Russia with Love is boring upon a re-watch, though I didn’t want it to be. Since there are twenty Bond movies and only four good ones, that gives the movies only a 20% success rate, which is… words fail me… not good.)

ANY-hoo, here are the ten best Bond songs, and I really don’t want to hear about my choice of A-ha, but feel free to debate anything else in the comment section; thank you.

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1. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” — John Barry

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0OQAxT1LR4&w=600&h=390]

Man, does this song rock or what? I feel a little weird picking an instrumental song for my number one, but fuck that, because it’s so good. An underrated song for an underrated James Bond movie. (Although George Lazenby is, in my humble opinion, too stuffy acting and not good-looking enough to be a truly acceptable James Bond, but whatevers.) And I also love love love the Propellerheads remix of this song. Hey, remember the Propellerheads? What ever happened to them? Remember how good and how prevalent the song “History Repeating” was? Remember that? Remember the mid-to-late 90s?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXVB9i9jADM&w=600&h=390]