• Song/Theme: We Have All the Time in the World
  • Created by: John Barry and Hal David
  • Singer: Louis Armstrong
  • Who is it about?: Mr and Mrs Bond
  • What's it about?: Being in love means you have all the time you need even if, ironically, you really don't have much time left at all...actually it is about death

I finally saw No Time to Die at the weekend and I really did need to have seen the movie before writing the previous post. Specifically, the question of the songs in Bond films is a direct part of No Time to Die which intentionally references one of the best songs made for the films. That song being, of course, Louis Armstrong singing We Have All the Time in the World. Bond's character even uses the song title in a line of dialogue in No Time to Die before the film's actual theme song and parts of the music appear in the film. However, its prime position is at the end of the film, where it belongs as the most famous song to appear at the end of a Bond movie.

The song's presence at the end of the most recent Bond film forces me to change the running order of this series. Skipping ahead to 1969, we are at an oddity in the sequence of Bond films. The only film starring George Lazenby as Bond, the first change of Bond and of only three Bond films that don't have an opening song. The biggest impediment to an opening number was the film's title. With an expectation that the song reprises the title, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was not a good candidate to be worked into song lyrics. So the film starts with an orchestral theme and instead we get a treat with this song at the end.

A year earlier, Armstrong had scored a hit with his bucolic What a Wonderful World and We Have All the Time in the World ostensibly also carries with it a sense of what is special and positive about life. In context, the song follows directly on from the murder of Bond's new wife (Dianna Rigg, of course) by Blofeld and quotes Bond's dialogue to his dead wife. Given all the Bond songs with references to death and killing that are aren't about death, it is appropriate that the one song that is intentionally mournful doesn't mention death at all and is musically more wistful than sad. To add to that sadness, the song was one of the very last in Armstrong's career.

One aspect I'd like to touch on with these songs, is the extent to which they work out of context from their role in Bond films. We Have All the Time in the World had a second run at the UK charts in the early 1990's when it was used in a Guiness commercial.

The recursive journey into the inner universe of a Guiness bubble featured a microcosm of planets, a tower of Babel and a TV with Rutger Hauer on it. Without the direct connection to a traumatic movie death, the song still has a wistful tone. I know at the time that I didn't connect the song with its role in a Bond film and On Her Majesty's Secret Service poor reputation as Bond film (somewhat rehabilitated these days) probably contributed to the song not being as famous at the time as you might expect. It's really the only Bond song to have been a sleeper hit that took time for people to see it as a classic.

It's role in No Time to Die...well...that gets us into spoilers but it was well applied.

John Barry and Hal David wrote other songs for the film but sadly I have nothing to say about "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown" other than it's not as good.

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