It’s my birthday today and as I mentioned on my own blog, I’m feeling good. While I wouldn’t say the future is so bright I have to wear shades, the present is very good — in contrast to last year, we’ll even go out to eat, then visit the big art museum here in Durham tomorrow.
So to celebrate I’m giving y’all a gift. Blogger Camestros Felapton has been posting about Bond theme songs and his post on Thunderball introduced me to something I’d never heard of: Johnny Cash’s shot at doing a Bond theme song. Where the songs tend to focus on the villain (“He looks at the world/And wants it all/So he strikes — like thunderball!”) or work the title into a love song (“You only live twice/or so it seems/one life for yourself/and one for your dreams.”), Cash’s song is about the stolen plane and its nuclear payload (“There’s a rumble in the sky/And the world can hear it call/They shudder at the fury of the mighty thunderball!”).
It’s very much in the style of country story ballads of the era (Lorne Greene’s “Ringo” is the only one that comes to mind right now) but it sounds very strange as a possible Bond song. Hell, a country song about nuclear blackmail sounds strange, period.
So my birthday gift to everyone reading this is the song on YouTube. It is, without question, unforgettable. And then wash your brains out with Shirley Bassey singing another, better alt.version, “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
Now, to give the post some eye candy, here’s a cat (Snowdrop, our half-adopted stray, to be specific). Because we all now cats get clicks!
#SFWApo
Happy birthday.
Also: cats deserve to get clicks!!!
Thank you.
And yes, they definitely do.
Snowdrop sitting on the couch with the door closed is a big step for him.
Happy Birthday
Is Snowdrop waiting for Mr Blofeld ?
(One cat seems too few to qualify as Pussy Galore)
I felt the verses of the Johnny Cash song were fine but something about the refrain didn’t work for me
Sorry to be a bit negative on your birthday but
The link to the Shirley Bassey song instead takes me to Johnny Cash again
(While Johnny Cash is a legend, so is Shirley Bassey)
And as for the Tom Jones song – if you include a link to lyrics it may be an idea to check rather than posting inaccurate lyrics (it’s “like” not “black”) – sorry if that’s too nit-picky
No, that’s fine. I’ve listened to the song so much I didn’t think about it. Will fix the Bassey link too.
Changes made. Now I shall continue to type until I have enough words in this reply not to suffer rejection. Because rejection makes me cry.
Thanks
I’ve now seen the Shirley Bassey clip
but…for some reason both You-Tube links have changed….
I’ll leave you so you can have a good cry…
I thought something weird was going on with the links. Let’s see if linking to cash in this comment does the trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmUriQ_PJjY