Bond-tastic

The good people over at CityOfFilms have put together the following little nuggets of information on all 20 of the Bond intro songs, as well as having posted all 20 of the intros in YouTube format. Go take a look, go on, you know you want to…

The Bond films are known for their theme songs heard during the title credits, sung by well-known popular singers (which have included Tina Turner, Paul McCartney and Wings, Tom Jones, Carly Simon, Madonna, and Duran Duran, among many others.)

Shirley Bassey performed three themes in total, and is the only singer to have been associated with more than one film.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the only Bond film with a solely instrumental theme, though Louis Armstrong's ballad "We Have All the Time in the World", which serves as Bond and his wife Tracy's love song and whose title is Bond's last line in the film, is considered the unofficial theme.

The main theme for Dr. No is the "James Bond Theme", although the opening credits also include an untitled bongo interlude, and concludes with a vocal Calypso-flavoured rendition of "Three Blind Mice" entitled "Kingston Calypso" that sets the scene.

From Russia with Love also opens with an instrumental version over the title credits (which then segues into the "James Bond Theme"), but Matt Monro's vocal version also appears twice in the film, including the closing credits; the Monro version is generally considered the film's main theme, even though it doesn't appear during the opening credits. The only singer, to date, to appear within the titles is Sheena Easton, who sang the theme for For Your Eyes Only.

The only singer of a title song to appear within the film itself as a character, to date, is Madonna, who appeared (uncredited) as a fencing instructor, Verity, as well as contributing the theme for Die Another Day.

Chris Cornell performs "You Know My Name" in Casino Royale. He is the first male lead vocalist to perform a 007 song since A-Ha in 1987 for "The Living Daylights". This is also the first Bond theme song since 1983's Octopussy to use a different title than the film.