Studio Daze: "Goldfinger"

Composed by John Barry, with lyrics written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, this 1964 title theme song to the James Bond film of the same name has been acclaimed by many to be one of the best title themes in the history of the series. What most people are unaware of is that the song features none other than Jimmy Page playing along on rhythm guitar.

When approached to write a song to use as a theme for the third installment of the already legendary James Bond series, Bricusse and Newley looked at each other instantly and sang out, "Goldfinger . . . wider than a mile," ala the song "Moon River," the theme song to another quite successful film "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The pair presented their idea to James Bond composer John Barry, who was less than thrilled, but acceded to the idea in the end.

To get Barry to understand what he was looking for in a song for his film, "Goldfinger" Director, Guy Hamilton presented the him the Bobby Darin hit, "Mack the Knife", which Guy considered to be "gritty and rough", just the sort of attitude he was looking for. When it came time to find a singer, Newley took on the task himself, but the result did not quite measure up to expectations; enter Shirley Bassey. Sidenote, Newley's version of the song would later be released in 1992 on the collection "The Best of Bond...James Bond".

Shirley Bassey

Shirley Bassey was a popular British songstress who had been performing since she signed her first professional recording contract at the age of 16. She had been pretty successful on the charts up to that point, five of her albums had reached up into the top 15, and had recorded two number one singles titled "As I Love You" and "Reach for the Stars", the first number ones ever attained by a Welsh performing artist. Bassey, later recounted how she came to sing on  "Goldfinger"

"John Barry wrote the music. We were touring in England at the time and he was conducting for me. One day he said, 'There is this new song for the James Bond film "Goldfinger" and we'd like you to do it. I know your rule that you will never listen to a song unless there are words. There are no words, I must warn you - there's only the music, which I have done. And we're waiting on the lyric.' And because we had such a wonderful relationship on our tour I said to John, 'Well, I'll listen to it. I'll break my rule.' And thank God I did, because the moment he played the music to me, I got goose pimples, and I told him, 'I don't care what the words are. I'll do it.' And fortunately the words were great."

A session was set up in early 1964 in EMI's large studio A. Producer George Martin, of The Beatles fame ran the session, and hired the hip young guitar slinger James Page to play rhythm on the track. Page recalled in the documentary "It Might Get Loud" that Bassey performed one take of her vocals and collapsed after the final note of the song.  After it was completed Barry presented the song to James Bond producer Harry Saltzman, who had a less than stellar reaction. Barry would recall that Saltzman stated that it was "the worst song he'd ever heard in his life." Despite his misgivings, the song remained as the theme as it was too late at that point to make a change.

John Barry

In the end the song proved to be a smash success selling well over a million copies in the United States alone, and would go on to be in the top ten in ten European countries. John Barry would go on to score eleven more James Bond films, and Bassey would go on to sing the themes to two subsequent films, "Diamonds are Forever" and "Moonraker", leaving her to be the only artist to sing the theme to more than one film in the series.

Here are the chords to the song itself. It's not a very difficult number to play unless you play a brass instrument:

E C 4X
 
E   C      Bm
Goldfinger
         E        A                  Eb *    
He's the man, the man with the Midas touch
           B7
A spider's touch

       E    C     Bm
Such a cold finger
        E      A                Eb  
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
             Abm
But don't go in

Abm    Dm                         A
Golden words he will pour in your ear
        Dm                           A7
But his lies can't disguise what you fear
      Eb           Bm             
For a golden girl, knows when he's kissed her
           F#m
It's the kiss of death from Mister

       E    C     Bm
Such a cold finger
        E      A                Eb  
Beckons you to enter his web of sin
             Abm
But don't go in

E   C     Bm 
Goldfinger 
       E       A                    Eb  
Pretty girl, beware of his heart of gold
              Abm
This heart is cold

E             Abm
He loves only gold
E    Abm
Only gold
E        Abm
He loves gold
E             Abm
He loves only gold
E    Abm
Only gold
E        Abm
He loves gold

* Eb = D chord on third fret