Barry's Best Bond Tracks

10 of my favorite tracks...

1. James Bond in Japan (YOLT)
2. Battle at Piz Gloria (OHMSS)
3. 007 and Counting (DAF)
4. Kobe Docks - Helga (YOLT)
5. Centrifuge and Corrinne Put Down (MR)
6. The Death of Aki (YOLT)
7. Mountains and Sunsets (YOLT)
8. Alpine Drive (GF)
9. Inflight Fight (TLD)
10. SPECTRE Island (FRWL)

1. Flight into Space
2. Over and Out
3. Snow Job
4. Twice Is the Only Way to Live
5. 007 and Counting
6. Following the Diamonds
7. Death of Fiona
8. Bond Meets Octopussy
9. Mujahadin and Opium
10. Return to Scaramanga's Island

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service [theme]
2. Golden Gate Fight
3. My Little Octopussy
4. The Sniper Was a Woman
5. 007 Takes the Lektor
6. Oddjob's Pressing Engagement
7. Centrifugue and Corinne Put Down
8. Flight into Space
9. Bond Meets Stacey
10. Dawn Raid on Fort Knox.

tricky, at least every film has three tracks that I quite like. Like the bonus OHMSS tracks or even Airship to Silicon Valley.

v

Kind of related, but I didn't know where to post this. This is a tribute I found on another forum posted shortly after Barry's passing in January this year. I think it hits home what makes the man's music great, more so than another other eulogy I've read (including those at the Royal Albert Hall ceremony).

Quote :

Barry had a special kind of unique skill, and it's something very hard to rationalise about.

He himself pointed out that music is, 'very personal, possibly the most personal thing'. All of us have musical memories that are 'associative', they remind us of emotions, periods, events, etc., without necessarily relating directly TO those things, just by a Pavlov reflex: the, 'They're playing our song' sort of thing. And of course there's the narcissistic, 'This is what I want to be associatied with' thing of youth too, with music as a designer item.

But sometimes composers can intuitively latch onto an event or situation in a film etc., and you can't quite say how, or even sometimes why, but it still IS direct, and 'relevant' to the images. Apparently Barry was obsessed with the scripts in the movies, and researched their development before writing a note.

Barry was from Yorkshire, and there's something about the NE of England (and including the SE of Scotland), the weather perhaps, that he simply was infused with, and I doubt he'd have personally been aware it, but it's a feel. It's a slightly melancholy feel at that, sometimes depressing even, it got into him somehow, nothing pastoral, but a human feel, with some sadness. Someone I knew (from 'Movie Boulevard' as it happens, for those who remember them) asked him once why his music was always so melancholy. His reply was, 'Is there any other kind?' He excelled at bittersweet and nocturnal evocations.

A quick example would be the score for 'Mary, Queen of Scots'. I recall exploring a semi-derelict castle associated with her, to the SE of Edinburgh, and as I walked through, it was Barry's 'feel' that came to me. Now someone like Rozsa would have researched Renaissance music, English, French and Scottish, before constructing melodies for that film, but with Barry, although there are some Scotticisms in the intervals of his score, it's all in the FEEL, the atmosphere. She must have been LIKE that. But that's not mere 'mood music', rather something strangely evocative, like a sort of 'medium' channelling something of an 'essence' in the music. But unlike with Rozsa, you can't analyse just HOW he did that. But I also recall once visiting Roslin Castle alone (long before this 'Da Vinci Code' cobblers) and the same day hearing his 'Thunderball' score, and feeling some sort of connection that evades my analysis.


He captured ELEGY always, like a sense of mourning for a disappearing world, and strangely enough, that's true too of the James Bond material .... something about the twilight of the old Britain, far transcending anything in the shallow movies themselves. He was a composer of transitions, and made them. A lot of his most powerful scores are almost disturbing in their elegaic sadness, and he was best when mourning for lost worlds, as with 'Dances With Wolves', or 'Robin and Marion', etc..

My personal favourite theme is the loss of the old, and the loss of innocence (which is partly why CHIMES OF MIDNIGHT is my favourite film of all time) - and I think why Barry's music resonates with me more than any other film composer except Herrmann, is because of that very quality.

Sharky wrote:

He captured ELEGY always, like a sense of mourning for a disappearing world, and strangely enough, that's true too of the James Bond material ....

Which is exactly why AVTAK doesn't deserve it's lowly reputation among Bond films nor the oft-overlooking of it's brilliant score. As Rog swings from the blimp towards potential death at the end of that film, the sense of elegy is palpable in Barry's score: Not much fun and only one more great music score to come from here on in. It's mournworthy alright.

Great quote there LS, every word of it spot-on.

Bond Back in Action Again (GF)
This Never Happened to The Other Fella (OHMSS)
Bond Meets Bambi and Thumper (DAF)
007 and Counting (DAF)
Mountains and Sunsets (YOLT)
Over and Out (OHMSS)
Inflight Fight (TLD)
Exercise at Gibraltar (TLD)
Underwater Mayhem/Death of Largo/End Titles (TB)
Oddjob's Pressing Engagement (GF)

The Whyte House
On the Road/Airport Source
Diamonds Are Forever (instrumental)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (theme)
Capsule In Space
Death Of Fiona
Try
Dusk at Piz Gloria
Into Miama
Bond Back in Action Again
Death of Aki
Ice Chase
Wine with Stacey

I guess we're naming our top ten Barry tracks? Well, here's mine at the moment, although this is likely to change;

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (theme)
2. Bond Averts World War Three (YOLT)
3. Cafe Martinique (Thunderball)
4. Oddjob's Pressing Engagement (Goldfinger)
5. Escape from Piz Gloria (OHMSS)
6. Thunderball (Instrumental)
7. Over and Out (OHMSS)
8. 007 and Counting (DAF)
9. Snow Job (AVTAK)
10. To Hell with Blofeld (DAF)

Keep it down to ten?
Here goes:

Underwater Mayhem
007 and Counting
The Whyte House
A Drop in the Ocean
Let's Go Get 'Em
Space Laser Battle
Ice Chase
Snow Job
The Palace Fight
Diamonds are Forever (Inst.)
We Have All the Time in the World (Inst.)

...in no particular order (and I know there are 11 - see This is Spinal Tap for an explanation).

I especially like Barry's lounge instrumentals - piano, bass, vibes, brushes on drums and a few muted horns. Perfect for unwinding at home.

What's interesting about the DAF soundtrack (my favorite) is that there is precious little action music, but the album is loaded with atmosphere. OHMSS - which is more action driven - is likewise highly evocative of its locations (oh hell, they all are, but these ones especially).

Even the MWTGG soundtrack - brief and rushed as it was - is superior the the likes of Michael Kamen and Michel Legrand.

Hard to discriminate. Fortunately, owning the complete set of expanded STs, I don't really have to.

Got some new favorites. Not in any order:

That's My Little Octopussy
Mujahadin and Opium
Exercise at Gibraltar
In Search of Scaramanga's Island
We Have All the Time in the World/James Bond Theme
Escape from Piz Gloria
James Bond with Bongos
Finding the Plane/Underwater Ballet/Bond with SPECTRE Frogmen/Leiter to the Rescue/Bond Joins Underwater Battle
Mountains and Sunsets
Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd/Bond to Holland

From Russia With Love
-James Bond Is Back / From Russia With Love (Film Version) / James Bond Theme

Goldfinger
-Into Miami
-Alpine Drive / Auric's Factory

Thunderball
-Thunderball (instrumental)

You Only Live Twice
-Capsule in Space
-Mountains and Sunsets
-Soviet Capsule
-S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and Village
-Twice is the Only Way to Live

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
-This Never Happened To The Other Feller
-Try
-On Her Majesty's Secret Service
-We Have All The Time In The World (instrumental)
-Battle At Piz Gloria
-We Have All The Time In The World / James Bond Theme

The Man With The Golden Gun
-In Search Of Scaramanga's Island

Moonraker
-Freefall (not included in the score)
-Miss Goodhead Meets Bond
-Bond Arrives In Rio
-Boat Chase
-Bond Lured To Pyramid
-Flight Into Space
-Space Lazer Battle

Octopussy
-009 Gets the Knife / Gorbinda Attacks

A View To A Kill
-Snow Job
-May Day Jumps
-Bond Meets Stacy
-Wine With Stacy

The Living Daylights
-Necros Attacks
-The Sniper Was A Woman
-Ice Chase
-Kara Meets Bond
-Koskov Escapes
-Hercules Takes Off
-Mujahadin And Opium
-Inflight Fight
-Excercise at Gibraltar