| James Bond Theme |
| Composer |
Monty Norman |
| Released |
1962-06-21 |
| Title Origin |
Official |
|
The James Bond Theme is a surf rock instrumental composed by Monty Norman for the very first James Bond movie, Dr. No. The tune has since been rearranged for nearly every James Bond movie and video game. Several spy soundtracks also borrow from it, especially the bassline, like Accolade's Comics (C64) and Title - Clever & Smart.
Games
James Bond (A26)
The melody, without any backing, plays on both voices of the TIA chip. Voice 2 is slightly delayed and quieter, like an echo. The instrument is a square wave with a software decay and sustain. It plays when
- you turn the Atari 2600 on. Eight seconds after end, the colors change every 4 seconds. Whenever you press the button, mission 1 starts.
- mission 1 or 2 is completed. Afterwards or upon button press, the next mission starts.
- your last craft is lost or mission 3 completed. Afterwards, your agent rating is shown. Four seconds later, it disappears and the colors change every further 4 seconds.
In the ROM, two names with no specific credit are hidden:
JOE GAUCHER LOUIS MARBEL
James Bond (A52)
Same as the final Atari 8-bit port. Which one was finished and released first is unknown.
James Bond (A8)
Track 1 is the melody, track 2 is a backing, track 3 largely doubles tracks 1 and 2 one octave higher, and track 4 is the bass. Two versions of the game are known, each with a slightly different revision of the music driver. The output is still the same, so no two rips or recordings are needed.
James Bond (C64)
The driver and music data were ported from the early Atari 8-bit port. Since SID has one voice less, the original track 3 was deleted. Each track plays on a triangle wave. Rather than making use of SID's decay feature, the sustain is decreased. The arranger was probably new to the C64.
Due to a bug in the animation of your craft shrinking, the last melody note is cut off a split second before end. It was recorded from VICE 3.2 with C64 old NTSC, but sounds the same on every SID chip. In the rip, it is track 1 and does not replicate the bug.
James Bond (CV)
From what platform(s) this game was ported is unknown, but just like in the C64 port, track 3 was deleted, since the SN76489 produces only 3 square waves, whereas voice 4 produces only noise.
The music format was slightly altered, the driver rewritten and consecutive rests combined into one. The driver calculates the pitches and volumes itself, and calls the ColecoVision's built-in ROM to output them to the SN76489 chip.
James Bond (SG1)
Same as the ColecoVision port, since both platforms have the same hardware, only at different addresses. The SG-1000 does not have the ColecoVision's built-in ROM, but the developer solved this by copying needed parts into the game's ROM.
James Bond 007: The Duel (GEN)
Plays as soon as the game boots up. The song is titled Bond Theme in the sound test.
James Bond 007: The Duel (SMS)
James Bond 007: The Duel (GG)
007: Live and Let Die (ZXS)
007: License to Kill (ZXS)
Brubaker (C64)
GoldenEye 007 (N64)
James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire (GC/PS2/XBOX)
This game uses a fully orchestrated version of the theme song. All three platforms the game was released on share the same exact music.
This song was later used in the game 007 Nightfire.
GoldenEye 007 (WII)
Trivia
- The Nintendo 64 game The World Is Not Enough was supposed to feature the James Bond theme song. However, Eurocom and Electronic Arts were unable to obtain the rights for the song.
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