It helps that “You Don’t Know My Name” feels like it’s from the 2000s without being constricted by a time period. “Casino Royale” needed an reinvention that attracted a newer, fiercer Bond for the post-9/11 age, but one that was still conversant with the iconography of the character. (“The mericless eyes of deceit,” if you will, as Cornell rumbles in the opening.) It’s something that Sam Smith echoed less effectively in his “SPECTRE” song, an attempt to recreate, in song form, the endless tug-of-war between Bond’s personal and professional entanglements. Switching back and forth between octaves, “You Know My Name” is a man effectively in a duet with himself, plumbing the lower, sultry half of the melody (“when you return to the night”) just before hopping up into a full-voiced falsetto (“the game that we have been playing”). The song is also an impressive showcase for Cornell’s four-octave vocal range. Other theme songs sampled the famous brass-heavy crescendo, but Cornell and co-writer David Arnold were able to marry the two, delivering it behind a gruff-voiced gusto that set the rest of the film up for greatness. But listen closely to the phrasing and melody of that chorus-closer and it’s also an echo of the rat-a-tat horns from John Barry’s original theme. In a crowded lineage of legendary musical performances - Shirley Bassey’s booming balladeering, the controlled chaos of Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die” - “You Know My Name” stands out as one the best.Īt its most basic, “The coldest blood runs through my veins/You know my name” is a pure distillation of the Bond character’s dangerously cool demeanor. And all of it is jump-started by that Cornell song.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |