A Fart I Have To Face

Earlier this year I went to an evening at the BFI with David Arnold, legendary composer of film scores. By which I mean that I went to see him talk, I didn’t go with him, we’re not mates or anything.

He was talking specifically about his work on the Bond films, which as I’m sure you’re aware is fantastic (proof here), and he let slip that he was working on a new project which would be of great interest to fans of James Bond music, but he couldn’t say what it was at that time. I set my anticipationometer to ‘quite excited’ and waited to see what goodies would spill forth.

Sadly the answer turned out to be ‘a new Shirley Bassey album produced by David Arnold’. It was a bit like being told you might be getting the complete Bond film collection for Christmas, only to open your stocking and find a VHS of Never Say Never Again.

Anyway, the other day I heard one of the tracks from Shirl’s album and, as has been pointed out elsewhere, was quite surprised to hear what was clearly a possible theme song for Quantum Of Solace, which had obviously been shot in the kneecaps in favour of Jack White and Alicia Keys’ effort. Not only that but I was even more surprised to find that I quite liked it. If I’d had any more surprises that day I probably would have had to have my spleen replaced, as everybody knows that each surprise shrinks one’s spleen by 2%.

So have a listen to ‘No Good About Goodbye’ and see what you think. Is this a Bond theme? Is it a great Bond theme? Is it better than Another Way To Die? And, perhaps most importantly, what does Burly Chassis mean by the line “There’ll always be a space, a fart I have to face now” at 0:42?

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