Rank the James Bond songs

The thread is mainly intended for the opening titles songs, but you can rank the ending credits and videogames ones too. Rejected themes aren't allowed because there are too many of them and some of them aren't even confirmed to be written for James Bond movies.

My list is:
You Know My Name, Casino Royale: By far my favourite James Bond song, I love everything about it, the melody, so beautiful, and the lyrics, which are very appropriated to the movie.
We Have all the Time in the World
I'll Take It All, Blood Stone
Skyfall
The World Is Not Enough (unused, by Straw)
Tomorrow Never Dies: Surrender
From Russia With Love
Goldeneye
The World Is Not Enough (by Garbage)
Goldfinger
A View to a Kill
All Time High
Thunderball
Licence to Kill
Moonraker
You Only Live Twice
Tomorrow Never Dies
Nobody Does It Better
The Living Daylights
When Nobody Loves You, Quantum of Solace videogame
The Man with the Golden Gun
For Your Eyes Only
Die Another Day
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
Experience of Love, Goldeneye
Another Way to Die, Quantum of Solace

06/27/2013 Updated Rank

Noone?

I'll give it a shot based on what I can remember.

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Instrumental Theme)
2. Thunderball
3. Diamonds Are Forever
4. The Man with the Golden Gun
5. From Russia With Love (Instrumental Theme)
6. A View to a Kill
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Nobody Does It Better
9. Moonraker
10. The Living Daylights
11. Licence To Kill
12. Goldfinger
13. All Time High
14. Live and Let Die
15. For Your Eyes Only
16. The World Is Not Enough
17. Tomorrow Never Dies
18. Never Say Never Again
19. GoldenEye
20. You Know My Name
21. Die Another Day/Another Way to Die

:5*:
A View To A Kill
Live and Let Die
Moonraker
Nobody Does It Better
Where Has Everybody Gone
Another Way To Die

:4*:
The Living Daylights
Thunderball
Diamonds Are Forever

:3*:
Tomorrow Never Dies
Surrender
If There Was A Man
We Have All The Time In The World
Goldfinger
Dirty Love
Goldeneye
You Know My Name
For Your Eyes Only
All Time High

:2*:
License To Kill
If You Asked Me To
Experience of Love
You Only Live Twice
The World Is Not Enough
Make It Last All Night

:1*:
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day
From Russia With Love
Never Say Never Again

In which movie did the song "Dirty Love" appear?

LICENCE TO KILL, at the barrel bar.

Best ten (in chronological order... can't rank them, beyond putting YOLT on top):

1. You Only Live Twice
Goldfinger
We Have All the Time in the World
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
A View to a Kill
If There Was a Man
GoldenEye
Surrender
You Know My Name

Worst ones:
The Man with the Golden Gun, For Your Eyes Only, The Experience of Love, Tomorrow Never Dies.

Louis Armstrong wrote:

Best ten (in chronological order... can't rank them, beyond putting YOLT on top):

1. You Only Live Twice
Goldfinger
We Have All the Time in the World
Diamonds are Forever
Live and Let Die
A View to a Kill
If There Was a Man
GoldenEye
Surrender
You Know My Name

Worst ones:
The Man with the Golden Gun, For Your Eyes Only, The Experience of Love, Tomorrow Never Dies.

If There Was A Man is surprising because it comes from Chrissie Hynde, who I wouldn't have expected to pull off such a love ballad.
DAF is very good, but I give the slight edge to MOONRAKER because I find Bassey's vocals "haunting", especially when she says:

I've seen your smile in a thousand dreams,
Felt your touch and it always seems,
You love me,
You love me

She brings "it" with that song. It's more personal. She's talking about a love that maybe lost. Beautiful tune, beautiful vocals.

You Know My Name could have been one of my favorite songs, but Cornell's vocals strain at times to cover the full range. Would love to hear a better singer cover this song.

Goldeneye is good, but not even among Turner's greatest songs. I will say that if it weren't for Turner the song would probably be among the lesser memorable. What good there is in the song is mostly due to Turner really selling it. But it always felt like a song that never quite manages to take flight. Her 1989 song, THE BEST, would have made for a much better theme song, and the tempo would've worked with Daniel's title sequence.

Tomorrow Never Dies is similar to You Know My Name in that the compositionally speaking, the tune is great, it's the vocals that I struggle with. Crow can't hit the higher notes, and it detracts some from the song, therefore forcing me to take off points. When she's singing the sultry, smoky part:
"Darling I'm killed
I'm in a puddle on the floor
Waiting for you to return"
....she's really selling the sizzle. When she get to the part: "Until that day, until the world falls away, until you say there'll be no more goodbyes, I'll see it your eyes Tomorrow Never Dies" she can't quite pull those notes off.

Walecs wrote:

23. Live and Let Die: Terrible. Really terrible. Listening to the Beatles without earmuffs is like drinking a Don Pérignon '53 at a temperature above 38 degrees.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! :(

I agree that MR is quite melancholic and to me the most underrated of all the theme songs. May be sacrilege but I prefer it to DAF.

1. The theme of course. But it may not exactly count amongst title songs.
2. OHMSS. Bond's life in musical form.
3. YOLT. Achingly beautiful, Nancy's somewhat reticent performance actually lends the song an incredible human quality that endures in the mind long after the film ends. Probably Barry's most overtly romantic melody.
4. LALD. Nearly 40 years later, and it is still just as Badass. Brilliant intro and even a great ending. Inventive and absolutely rocking.
5. GF. Shirley's bloodcurdling vocal is just a strong as ever, but to me it's Barry's understated melodies and instrumentation that make this such a classic, along with the score.
6. TB. Dark, murky and just as atmospheric as the water that permeates the film. Tom Jones absolutely nails it. (As he should, he fainted on delivering the last note.)
7. A View to a Kill. What can I say as a huge Duran Duran fan? Great song that has a sense of foreboding even with admittedly nonsense lyrics. I'm still not fully sold on the orchestral insertions, but they serve a musical purpose.
8. Moonraker. A delicate little mournful piece that Shirley croons with such conviction that you actually believe it's central loneliness. If only this could have been in the film somewhere. I adore that little piano riff that runs throughout and ends the song.
9. We Have All the Time in the World. This is the one that only increases in significance with time. It is emotional due to its connection with the doomed Bond-Tracy relationship, but even more so because it was Louis Armstrong's final recording and because he was in such poor health at the time. You can just feel his heart and soul in the vocal, permeated with an extreme sadness from the surroundings. IIRC Barry once said that they all wanted to cry in the control booth.
10. Nobody Does it Better-Brilliant idea that is wonderfully performed, recorded, orchestrated. But the album version is slightly different from the film version.
11. The Living Daylights. I love this song. A-Ha are not typically a band I would ever listen to, but everything here works incredibly well for me. i love the lyrics, especially "living's in the way we die."
12. DAF. Marvelously slinky. THAT BASSLINE! OH GOD! I SWOON!
13. FRWL. Dated, but still serviceable croon.
14. The Man With The Golden Gun. A bit silly, but I still like it.
15. TWINE. The best of the Brosnan themes, and a favorite of mine.
16. GE. Great instrumentation, melody, vocal and interesting lyrics. Avoid the soundtrack version, the edits are very weird.
17. All Time High. Serviceable but ultimately just title sequence filler.
18. Licence To Kill. Silly, but with great darkness inherent that goes nowhere. The idea that someone or Bond would have a Licence to Kill anyone because of a relationship or "somebody trying to make a move on you" is ludicrous. Too much of an 80's R&B flavor to really be effective. Guilty pleasure.
19. DAD. It's not awful. It's too much of an effort to make something for a dance club, but in there is some great material.
20. TND. I always want to like this, and probably do more than this ranking, but the vocal is awful. Terrible, understated, cringe inducing, and gutless to be exact. The song is disjointed with way too many things going on, but the chorus has that unbelievably fantastic guitar riff that is instantly 60's. In fact that single bit is the best thing Arnold has ever done.
21. Never Say Never Again. Parts are good, when they aren't trying so hard. But just plain forgettable and downright bad in places.
22. FYEO. The only one I hate of the official series. Annoying, silly, pointless, lite-rock radio gold, just putrid. Okay,it's not that bad, but I've never liked this at all.
23. You Know My Name. Is not a Bond song, but something preexisting. It's not a bad song,but just not particularly memorable.
Another Way To Die. Mindless crap. Sounds awful, disjointed, silly, pointless, stupid and a million other adjectives. Who decided to go with this?

I love Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?. It's a silly song yes, but it takes on an entirely new meaning in the film. In my mind it is forever linked to the Murren ice rink scene, and has such an impact both in it's place in the story and stylistic background. (Meaning Bond's personal lowest moment is scored by happy crowds, blaring children's music and families-furthering his ostracizing.)

The Casino Royale theme and score are wonderful. RIP Hal David.

And don't forget the FRWL titles. Easily the most exotic Barry ever went, and just beautiful.

Is The Experience of Love even listenable?

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

If There Was A Man is surprising because it comes from Chrissie Hynde, who I wouldn't have expected to pull off such a love ballad.
DAF is very good, but I give the slight edge to MOONRAKER because I find Bassey's vocals "haunting", especially when she says:

I've seen your smile in a thousand dreams,
Felt your touch and it always seems,
You love me,
You love me

She brings "it" with that song. It's more personal. She's talking about a love that maybe lost. Beautiful tune, beautiful vocals.

You Know My Name could have been one of my favorite songs, but Cornell's vocals strain at times to cover the full range. Would love to hear a better singer cover this song.

Goldeneye is good, but not even among Turner's greatest songs. I will say that if it weren't for Turner the song would probably be among the lesser memorable. What good there is in the song is mostly due to Turner really selling it. But it always felt like a song that never quite manages to take flight. Her 1989 song, THE BEST, would have made for a much better theme song, and the tempo would've worked with Daniel's title sequence.

Tomorrow Never Dies is similar to You Know My Name in that the compositionally speaking, the tune is great, it's the vocals that I struggle with. Crow can't hit the higher notes, and it detracts some from the song, therefore forcing me to take off points. When she's singing the sultry, smoky part:
"Darling I'm killed
I'm in a puddle on the floor
Waiting for you to return"
....she's really selling the sizzle. When she get to the part: "Until that day, until the world falls away, until you say there'll be no more goodbyes, I'll see it your eyes Tomorrow Never Dies" she can't quite pull those notes off.

Damn, I forgot ITWAM! For some reason, and I think it's primarily the personal feeling, it really gets to me. Great forgotten song, and the collaboration with Barry was spectacular.
You got it on the nose with Crow's TND vocal. It kills the song in the chorus, but she works well in the smokier verses, though not always convincingly.
GE gets by mostly on thematics, style and feeling just like the film.

Surrender from TND (the Crow version is down in the dregs with Craig era songs and LTK, which even though it is almost my favorite movie, I've still never listened to all the way through (covered my ears in the theater, just bugged hell out of me. ... then again the end song for LTK was very nice, much better than the 'popular' version that emerged from Ms Titanic a few years later.)

ITWAM from TLD - just beautiful, nicer than the a-ha by far
GE very solid
GF/TB/YOLT/DAF - Bond classic, just like Original Coke, before new Coke or the not-the-same Coke Classic.

L&LD Odd How
VIEW TO A KILL So Many
MwGG MooreFlicks
MR sport okay tunes

FRWL & FYEO marginal

DN - The Dregs, along with
OP & SPY & TND & TWine & DAD & of course these last couple noisemakers that signified nothing.

Surrender
Live and Let Die
A View to a Kill
Diamonds Are Forever
Goldeneye
From Russia With Love [Opening Medley]
The World Is Not Enough
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Only Myself To Blame
Tomorrow Never Dies
The Living Daylights
Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
You Only Live Twice
Thunderball
We Have All The Time In The World
Goldfinger
You Know My Name
Dr. No Opening Sequence Medley
Make It Last All Night
For Your Eyes Only
Moonraker [Disco End Credits]
Moonraker
Where Has Everybody Gone
Licence to Kill
If There Was A Man
Skyfall
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day
Nobody Does It Better
From Russia With Love [Matt Munro]
The Experience of Love
Another Way To Die
Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown
All Time High
If You Asked Me To

FieldsMan wrote:

Surrender
Live and Let Die
A View to a Kill
Diamonds Are Forever
Goldeneye
From Russia With Love [Opening Medley]
The World Is Not Enough
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Only Myself To Blame
Tomorrow Never Dies
The Living Daylights
Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
You Only Live Twice
Thunderball
We Have All The Time In The World
Goldfinger
You Know My Name
Dr. No Opening Sequence Medley
Make It Last All Night
For Your Eyes Only
Moonraker [Disco End Credits]
Moonraker
Where Has Everybody Gone
Licence to Kill
If There Was A Man
Skyfall
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day
Nobody Does It Better
From Russia With Love [Matt Munro]
The Experience of Love
Another Way To Die
Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown
All Time High
If You Asked Me To

Updated.

Surrender
Live and Let Die
A View to a Kill
From Russia With Love [Opening Medley]
Goldeneye
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World Is Not Enough
On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
Diamonds Are Forever
You Only Live Twice
Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Thunderball
The Living Daylights
Only Myself To Blame
We Have All The Time In The World
Die Another Day
The Experience of Love
Where Has Everybody Gone
If There Was A Man
Goldfinger
Skyfall
Dr No [Opening Medley]
From Russia With Love [Matt Munro]
No Good About Goodbye
You Know My Name
Moonraker [Disco Version]
For Your Eyes Only
Moonraker
Licence to Kill
Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown
The Man With The Golden Gun
If You Asked Me To
Make It Last All Night
Nobody Does it Better
All Time High

...



Writing's On The Wall
Another Way to Die

Skyfall (My ringtone. If my phone ever goes off when inappropriate, I will say that it could be anyone. No-one will buy that of course. Still worth a try. "Bond? No no no. That is not my mobile.").
Writing's on the Wall (the song is exceedingly beautiful - the music I mean, the lyrics, well, partly. Just takes some time to get used to his falsetto voice)
Goldeneye
The World Is Not Enough
Die Another Day (I love the lyrics so much that I can even live with the techno beats…AND it's perfect when driving a car)
For Your Eyes Only
We Have All the Time in the World (horrible earworm, though. Always makes me sad)
Live and Let Die (nice lyrics)
All Time High
The Living Daylights (A-ha at their best, but I just like A-ha anyway)
You Know My Name
Diamonds Are Forever
Goldfinger
Another Way to Die
You Only Live Twice
Licence to Kill
Nobody Does It Better
From Russia with Love
Surrender (if it weren't for that horrible singer…)
The Man with the Golden Gun
A View to a Kill (usually I like Duran Duran, but that is too 80s for me)
Thunderball
Moonraker

No Tomorrow Never Dies?

Surrender, fifth from the bottom. I hate the voice of Crow. I need a good cover version because I DID like Carewe's version. THEN it would definitely go up.

Something like this. Barry is king, everyone else is an also-ran:

We Have All The Time In The World
Diamonds Are Forever
Goldfinger
You Only Live Twice
Skyfall
Nobody Does it Better
Moonraker
Live and Let Die
A View to a Kill
Goldeneye
The World Is Not Enough
The Living Daylights
All Time High
The Man With The Golden Gun
From Russia With Love
Thunderball
Licence to Kill
For Your Eyes Only
Tomorrow Never Dies
Three Blind Mice
You Know My Name
Another Way to Die
Die Another Day
Writing's On The Wall

Kath wrote:

Surrender, fifth from the bottom. I hate the voice of Crow. I need a good cover version because I DID like Carewe's version. THEN it would definitely go up.

Surrender is sung by k.d lang, and is the end credits song Kath. Tomorrow Never Dies is sung by Sheryl Crow.

Nobody seems to accept Three Blind Mice is the title song to Dr No but ...

FieldsMan wrote:

Kath wrote:

Surrender, fifth from the bottom. I hate the voice of Crow. I need a good cover version because I DID like Carewe's version. THEN it would definitely go up.

Surrender is sung by k.d lang, and is the end credits song Kath. Tomorrow Never Dies is sung by Sheryl Crow.

So I had a healthy mixture in my head, thanks. Good news are: I don't need a cover version for Surrender, bad news are: I dislike Tomorrow Never Dies as a whole. But it took me some time to get used to some Bond songs (there was a time when I hated Skyfall), so, anything can happen. I loved TWINE instantly, though.

EricaAmbler wrote:

Nobody seems to accept Three Blind Mice is the title song to Dr No but …

You don't have it in your list, either.  

I'm not convinced - we have an edit function.
No, most likely a case of tiredness, I'm sorry.

Rough new listing. I adore this entire section and can even today better appreciate FYEO. The soundtrack TND is much better mixed than the film version which separates out the notably weak vocal to a painful degree. The stereo mix on all CD releases is MUCH better mixed.

OHMSS theme
FRWL titles
LALD
YOLT
TLD
MR
If There Was a Man
GF
TB
AVTAK
We Have All The Time in The World
DAF
DN medley
Nobody Does It Better
GE
Licence to Kill
TMWTGG
TWINE
Surrender
TND
DAD
FYEO
All Time High
Make It Last All Night
If You Asked Me To doesn't belong in the series. NSNA is so amazingly silly that it is badass and will get stuck in your head forevermore.

Why is it that it took me ages to realize that they snuck in an amazingly hysterical dirty song in FYEO with "Make it Last All Night" where every lyric is the worst of double entendres? Great song that makes you laugh yourself silly.

Writing's on the Wall makes you want to scream in torment. I could feel my skin crawling off in the theater in sheer agony through the titles. DAD is Shakespearean in comparison.

Not the complete list, but for what it's worth...

You Know My Name
Live and Let Die (former #1)
Another Way To Die
Nobody Does It Better
The Spy Who Loved Me
The Shirley Basseys
You Only Live Twice
Then, there’s a big bunch-up of songs, with Skyfall probably the best of the rest, and then,

What ever that horrible, POS Sam Smith song is called for Spectre. It’s in the negatives, it’s so bad.

I have a feeling you're a Craig apologist. I'll try to be nice.



I really can't justify AWTD being as high as it is.