All Episodes

November 15, 2023 18 mins

James Bond themes were handled by soulful or sultry vocalists in the decade since 1963’s “From Russia With Love.” Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and even Louis Armstrong had taken turns singing themes and secondary themes for the films. The Broccoli family who produces the James Bond franchise expected nothing less when they asked Paul McCartney to write the theme for “Live and Let Die.” What they didn’t expect was for him to perform it too. And for the song—1973’s “Live and Let Die”—to become the most popular theme of the series thus far.

“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.

The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.

Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. He is McCartney. Paul McCartney, a commander, a hero,
a man of action, everything you've ever.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Loved in a Bond film.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Em calls in from the secret Intelligence Service with a mission.
A commission to write a song before it's too late.
More thrilled, more exciteable, more chill. Agent McCartney receives his
technical materials, a title, a novel for inspiration and more.

(01:02):
At his piano in London, he embarks on his perilous journey.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Live and Let Die.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I'm Paul muldoon and I've been fortunate to spend time
with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And will you look at me?

Speaker 4 (01:37):
I'm going on to I'm actually a performer.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
That is, sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Oh actually I'm a songwriter. My god, Well that that
crypt homie.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
This is McCartney. A life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in pop popular music. In this episode, Live and Let.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Die when you are in your Heart was an open.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
Book used to say little lately.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Live and Let Die, released in nineteen seventy three, is
the eighth film in the James Bond franchise, the first
of the Roger Moore era. It had all the components
of the classic spy thriller, dry Martini's clever gadgets, car chases.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Roger Moore as James Bond.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Double O seven can Live and Let Die.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Paan McCartney may not have been an international secret agent,
but he did have a fair amount in common with
Double Oh seven.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Did you still the Aston Martin in nineteen seventy three
or I moved through a couple of cars? It was
the very first Bond film. Dr no whether he had
and asked, and you'll be using this Aston Martin dB
five with modifications now pay attention please. It was only

(03:26):
later and really I put it together.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
It was so obvious.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
You know why I got on Aston anyway. I've had
a few nice cars, sports cars. I once had a
Lamborghini just for the sort of thrill of having a
sports car. George was the real car person. George ended
up with a McLaren, which you couldn't use on Britain

(03:53):
with his speed limits. You know, George was a very
sports car orientated. In fact, he was horrified to hear that.
I still sometimes used the boss public transport. You will
you go on the buses because he so left that behind.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
On top of owning an Aston, Martin McCartney always harbored
a secret desire to write a Bond song.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
It was always a sneaky ambition to write a Bond
song because in some ways I like to see myself
one portion of myself as a jobbing writer. You know,
you require a harm for the Queen's wedding. I'm your man,

(04:42):
Dear Elizabeth, Oh greatness, run it off the land.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
They know they fill in, will take your hand. So
putting that aside.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
The equivalent of that for a lot of people was
and still is actually the Bond song. It's it's you
know you you've written the Bond song. It's a bit
of an accolade.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Since the early days, part of the allure of the
Double seven franchise had been the Bond song, a catchy
hit from the hottest pop star of the.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Time, Binger.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Everyone from Shirley Bassie to Billie Eilish has made their contributions.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Okay, So in this case, a record guy who was
handling the Beatles Apple records.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
He knew somebody connected.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
With the Bond franchise, and so one day we were
just chatting and he said, you don't have any interest
in doing a Bond film? Yeah, I'm probably interested, you know,
not trying to look too enthusiastic.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
Yeah, I said, yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
But did they even changing world in which were living?

Speaker 6 (06:22):
Makes you.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Say living Linda.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
When the producers approached McCartney, the script for the film
had not yet been finished. So McCartney got a hold
of a copy of Ian Fleming's nineteen fifty four novel
Live and Let Die.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
And it's a real page turner. So I just spent
the afternoon just sitting down and making myself know what
the book is about. So then I knew when I
sat down to write the song, I knew what the
idea would be. Now you used to say living live.
Now you say living a die, And I didn't want

(07:08):
it to be. So you've got a gun and now
you go killing people, So living and Die, I just
wanted it to be. Let it go, don't worry about
it when you've got problems and everything, just live and
let die and live and just let it go. And
so once I had that, it kind of almost wrote itself.

(07:30):
When you were young in your heart was an open book.
You used to stay living on it.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
Live. You know you did, you know you did it.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
But if this ever changing world in which we live
in makes you give it a cry, stay living in
a die, you know, to help with it very much,
thinking how is this going to land? Well, we know

(07:56):
in the Bond film he's going to come out and
sort of shoot, he's gone at the screen and it's
all going to go red and drippy, and there's going
to be a beautiful girl in.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
A very scant costume.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
And so I see where I am.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
This is the world I'm in.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Sitting at the piano in his London house, McCartney had
a draft finished in a single afternoon. He brought it
to his longtime collaborator George Martin, who was producing the
soundtrack for the film, and together they finested into a bold,
Bond worthy hit.

Speaker 6 (08:42):
And he said, yeah, we'll come over, and I said, okay,
so go over, And then i'd go when you were
young and you're open.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
And show him the chords.

Speaker 6 (08:58):
And then I'd say, and then I've got this da
dam this is like the sort of central rift to it.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
And then we just we talked.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
And he said it'd be good to go off into
Bondian arrangements, and so I left that completely to him.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
All the sort of.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
After the riff was played, there's a central middle instrumental
bit which was pure George, and.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
I was very happy with that. So it was a
good experience.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
They recorded it in George Martin's studio above Oxford Circus,
and then George jetted off to the Caribbean with a
demo stashed in his briefcase.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
In those days, you'd have an ascetate a little pressing
of the record, and George went out to the Bahamas
or somewhere where they were filming it, and they were
on the beach somewhere, so he organized to bring a
little record player and this disc and he played it
to Kobe Broccoli, who said, he said, that's nice, George,

(10:30):
that's a nice demo. When are you going to make
the finished record? George said, that is it.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Apparently the producers had imagined that McCartney would write the
song for someone else to perform. In fact, there's a
scene in the film where the song is covered by
the soul singer bj Ar not.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
Changing.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Instead, McCartney's rock vocals were a breath of fresh air
to the franchise's songwriting tradition.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
Now you know, there might be some who would have
questions about the idea of writing a song to order,
as a song to fulfill a particular task. That's obviously
not a no.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, I like it because I do the other way
as well. I wouldn't like to just write toward it,
but I like saying, as I say, I'm a troubadour
and I've got my little guitar and I'm in a
field and I'm writing about the stream and daffodils and

(11:52):
the sunshine, whatever's occurring to me. I like that very much,
and I think that's mainly what I do. But then
occasionally something will come along, Well, some would you like
to write for thinking a film on film, for instance,
And I will be yeah, just kind of. I'm an enthusiast,

(12:16):
so it'll just kind of excite me.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Oh, could I do that?

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'll go And I nearly always agree to these things
before I've really thought them out, because.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Our enthusiast is. Yeah. I enjoy the process.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
We're trying to come up with something that will fit
the brief.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
Some people, you say, don't like to do that. It
can be a very big challenge.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
I mean it's really just an extension of some notion
of the songwriter as having a place.

Speaker 7 (12:53):
In our in our culture, you know, in which there
is a job to be done and it's a job
of work, and that's perfectly reasonable way for a song
to come into existence.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
I like to think a bit like that sometimes.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Then you got a job to do, you got to
do it well, you got to give.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Whilst I didn't rate it too much alongside like from
Russia with Love Goldfinger, Yeah, which were very Bondie, I
wasn't sure where the mine was, but a lot of
people put it on their lists and put it top
of the lists.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
Actually a Bond song, so.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
It was the first rock and roll Bond that's right.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, Living Let Die is likely the only Bond song
to be covered by Guns N' Roses, who released their
own version in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
I thought it was pretty good, actually, I was more
amazed that they would do it.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
It's a young.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
American group and the interesting thing was that my kids
went to school and they would say, my dad wrote
that this is no they didn't it's gone sinn Roses,
so nobody would ever believe them. But yeah, for a
while it was just gone sin Roses. But I was
very happy that they'd done it. I always like people

(14:50):
doing my songs. I don't know about you, but if
someone decides to recite one of your poems, it's.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
A great compliment.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
You know, of course it is. In my case, it pays.
How do you know it doesn't play in my kids don't?

Speaker 4 (15:06):
No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Paul mccartny, his own version of the song had been
an instant hit. It went to number nine on the
British charts, number one on the American Until then, the
highest numbers reached by a Bond theme.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Well, it's a big show for us.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
It's extremely exciting. We have pyrotechnics, extremely dangerous. It can
get a little hot up there, yeah, I must say.
But our pyrotechnics guy, who in whom we trust, is
called shaky.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
There's a clue.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
And the thing I think I like most about it
is that, as we know the explosions about to happen,
the big first explosion. So we often look at the people,
particularly in the front row, who are like blithely going
along and live and and you just it's great to
just watch them. They look at each other and oh

(16:07):
my god, they're shocked.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
No, this is emty d world in withs we live
in makes it.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
R so living the little we did it in early

(16:39):
days and there.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Was the explosion, and I suddenly noticed as we started
it it was like a ninety year old woman, very
old in the front row. I suddenly got both ship
we're going to kill her. There's no book stopping. I
can't stop the song saying cover your ears love. So

(17:03):
it comes to itis and I kind of like, I
kind of look away living and boom, and I look
back to her thinking court and she is loving it.
So yeah, when you got a job, well.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
You've got to give me.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Live and let Die from the single released by Wings
in nineteen seventy three. In the next episode, mystery tours

(17:55):
were cheap one day bus trips out of the city
for working class families. Some of them were magical McCartney.

(18:17):
A Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia,
NPL and Pushkin Industries.
Advertise With Us

Host

Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Decisions, Decisions

Decisions, Decisions

Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.