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Moonraker is the soundtrack for the 11th James Bond film of the same name.
Moonraker was the third of the three Bond films for which the theme song was performed by Shirley Bassey. Kate Bush and Frank Sinatra were both considered for the vocals, before Johnny Mathis was approached and offered the opportunity. Mathis was unhappy about the song and withdrew from the project, leaving the producers to offer the song to Bassey within just weeks of the release date. As a result Bassey made the recordings with very short notice and as a result, she never regarded the song 'as her own' as she had never had the chance to perform it or promote it first. The film uses two versions of the title theme song, a ballad version heard over the main titles, and a disco version for the end titles. Confusingly, the United Artists single release labelled the tracks on the 7" single as "Moonraker (Main Title)" for the version used to close the film and "Moonraker (End Title)" for the track that opened the film. The song failed to make any real impact on the charts, which may partly be attributed to Bassey's failure to promote the single, given the last minute decision and the way in which it was quickly recorded to meet the schedule.
As with We Have All The Time In The World back in 1969, the lyrics were written by Hal David.
Finally in 2005, Bassey sang the song for the first time outside James Bond on stage as part of a medley of her three Bond title songs. An instrumental strings version of the title theme was used in 2007 tourism commercials for the Dominican Republic.
The score for Moonraker marked a turning point in John Barry's output, abandoning the Kentonesque brass of his earlier Bond scores and instead scoring the film with slow, rich string passages - a trend which Barry would continue in the 1980s with scores such as Out of Africa and Somewhere in Time.
Moonraker uses for the first time since Diamonds Are Forever a piece of music called "007" (briefly, and late in track 7, "Bond Arrives in Rio and Boat Chase"), the secondary Bond theme composed by Barry which was introduced in From Russia with Love.
Unusually, the score was recorded in Paris - all previous John Barry Bond scores had been recorded at CTS Studios in London. A general strike in Britain had forced the production to relocate to France and it was decided the film would be scored there as well. Unlike all of the other Bond films, the score for Moonraker has never received an extended release, due to the loss of the original session masters which appear to have been misplaced in France.
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