The James Bond theme song fits perfectly into the myth of 007. The score bursts through the door uninvited, rattling off its bass like a machine gun before ramping up into an explosion of horns. Damn, it makes us want to karate chop a henchman just thinking about it. Which makes it even more surprising that the tune was never written to be a Bond song at all, but started life as a ditty about a man whose sneezes destroy lives.
The theme music originated as a song titled "Bad Sign, Good Sign," taken from the musical based on the novel A House For Mr. Biswas. Back then, the now-iconic piece came with lyrics, which tell the story of a man, a cursed man, who ... sneezes a lot and his dad fell in a lake because of it? Hardly spy material, whoever he is. Not that there's a lot of proof in the song, but the court of public opinion does find the defendant guilty as hell.
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