5 James Bond Themes That Almost Were

At the 2013 Oscar Ceremony, Bond girl Halle Berry introduced the montage of homage made to honor 50 years of 007, calling the music in the films, "a genre all its own." While a very nice thing to say, she may have been more right than she realized. Through the classic riff played by Vic Flick in Dr. No, the power pop of Shirley Bassey in Goldfinger, and Tom Jones' booming performance of Thunderball, James Bond music definitely has a unique sound. It's easy to tell when the Bond theme is being parodied or recycled in other forms of music. However, there are only twenty-three Bond films (25 including the Non-Eon rogue films) and even fewer themes to define this so-called "genre." Or is there? James Bond is a legacy that everyone wants to be part of. So it comes as no surprise that for every Bond film song that got picked, there was anywhere between one to five songs that got rejected. Some of the entries were not only bizarre, but were delivered by parties that you would least expect. These songs being politely turned away from Bond films eventually would wind up on the artist's next album and could be easily defined as the weirdest song that person ever recorded. Mostly because they weren't trying to be themselves - they were trying to be Bond. So in the words of our 2013 Oscar host, Seth MacFarlane, "Here's to the losers..."