20 Things You Didn’t Know About GoldenEye (1995)

13. A Pleasant Drive In St. Petersburg

French musician, Éric Serra - a frequent collaborator with director, Luc Besson - composed the musical score to GoldenEye when regular Bond composer, John Barry proved unavailable. Serra also composed and sang “The Experience of Love”, which plays over the end titles; he had originally written the piece for his previous film, Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994).

Serra’s score has received mixed reviews, particularly his synthesised version of The James Bond Theme, which plays over the opening gun barrel sequence. Even before the film’s release, the producers were concerned by some of Serra's compositions to the extent that they hired British musicians, John Altman and David Arch to provide orchestral music closer to John Barry’s work.

A key example is the music that accompanies the tank chase through the streets of St. Petersburg; Serra’s compositions were completely discarded in favour of Altman’s, but the French composer’s original work can still be heard in the track entitled “A Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg” on the soundtrack album.

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