Thursday, March 28, 2024

(Listen) Sam Smith Couldn’t Work the Word “Spectre” Into His James Bond Theme Song

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Maybe it’s me. I really wanted to love Sam Smith’s theme song from the James Bond movie “Spectre.” But couldn’t Smith work the title in anywhere in his song “The Writing’s on the Wall.” His melodramatic and kind of wan theme doesn’t mention ‘spectre’ once. It’s one word! It sounds like he’s singing the theme from a movie called “Writing’s on the Wall.” Most great Bond songs at least have the movie’s title somewhere in the song– “Nobody Does it Better” fit in “The spy who loved me” perfectly, for example.

Didn’t Smith like the word “Spectre”? He didn’t have to rhyme it, he could have had the “spectre of”– something.

Maybe we’ve been spoiled by Adele. But Smith’s song perhaps should have been more upbeat and less like a sequel to the “Skyfall” song. Plenty of Bond songs have rocked or at least rolled, from Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” to Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger.” Again, the Smith song feels melo-dramatic, not actually dramatic. Pulses will not be racing as the movie starts following this introduction.

But Smith has his fans. And he has a falsetto. He’s the first male singer to tackle Bond in years, but keeps this light, and a little weepy. Maybe “Writing’s on the Wall” will grow on me. But I do wish the theme from “Spectre” made me feel like a spectre of something, a foreboding, over the proceedings.

You can hear it on Spotify here:

https://player.spotify.com/album/50bQvrNAFsAaIbqCcfD7FT

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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