I've generally stayed out of the James Bond waters of late for pretty obvious reasons. But as a result of Adele's Skyfall being released, I went back and listened to the previous 007 theme songs, paying extra attention to the post-GoldenEye tunes that I have perhaps only listened to once or twice. First of all, I take back every vaguely defensive thing I ever said about Madonna's "Die Another Day". The tuneless, joyless disco chore is every bit as awful as the pundits claimed ten years ago, so mea culpa. But the next one on the list was Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale. I had only heard the song perhaps once, when I saw the film in theaters six years ago (confession: when I watch the 007 films at home, I usually skip the credit sequences as they do nothing for me and of course are completely disconnected to the narrative). So imagine my surprise as I discovered, six years late perhaps, what a rather terrific and catchy kick-ass rock tune Cornell's ditty actually is. It's firmly in the vein of hard-rock "being a spy is *hard!* tunes from The Living Daylights and A View To A Kill (and arguably Live and Let Die). It's also the catchiest tune since Duran Duran's "Dance Into the Fire" and stands alongside that camp classic as one of the best pure rock-n-roll songs in the Bond universe. Anyway, if you haven't listened to it in awhile, sample above. And consider this a second mea culpa, for not realizing how good this theme was all those years.
Scott Mendelson
Scott Mendelson
