When you get asked to write a James Bond theme song, that’s when you know you’ve made it. Nearly every major artist has been handed the torch at least once, from Sheryl Crow to A-ha to Madonna. When Ron Kass, who’d worked with Apple Records, asked Paul McCartney whether he would be interested in recording his own, it was an easy decision.
As McCartney shares in his book The Lyrics, he didn’t even have access to the screenplay when the opportunity came up in 1972.
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“Writing a Bond song is a bit of an accolade, and I always had a sneaking ambition to do it,” he shared. “Ron told me the film was called Live and Let Die. The screenplay wasn’t finished at that point, so I got the Ian Fleming book, and it’s a real page-turner.”
McCartney might not have known the whole story in detail yet. However, the songwriter did know what he didn’t want his song to be about.
“I didn’t want the song to be, ‘You’ve got a gun. Now go kill people. Live and let die.’ That’s just not me,” he shared. “I wanted it to be, ‘Let it go. Don’t worry about it. When you’ve got problems, just live and let die.’ Once I had that thought in my head, the song almost wrote itself.”
As it turns out, McCartney’s instincts were on the right track. “Live And Let Die” was eventually nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars, making it the first Bond song to do so.
The Guns N’ Roses Version
For those who haven’t heard McCartney’s version of “Live And Let Die”, there’s also a Guns N ‘ Roses cover of the song that you might’ve come across if you’re a classic rock fan.
Guns N’ Roses released their version of the classic in 1991. Their song also did well and was even nominated for a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.
As McCartney explains, their version was so popular that younger generations struggled to fathom that it was actually a song written by the ex-Beatle.
“In the early nineties, Guns N’ Roses did a version of [the song], and the interesting thing was that my kids went to school and said, ‘My dad wrote that,’ and their friends said, ‘No, he didn’t. It’s Guns N’ Roses.’ Nobody would believe them,” he shared.
“But I was very happy that they’d done it. I thought it was a pretty good version, actually. I was amazed that they would do it – a young American group.” McCartney added, “I always like people doing my songs. It’s a great compliment.”
Photo by: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
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