The pop sensation sidelines her trademarks for a tasteful track that matches the haunted solitude of its leading man
James Bond was a bit of a mouldy fig when it came to music. There weren’t many things worse, he opined in Goldfinger, than “listening to the Beatles without earmuffs”. The Beatles had the last laugh – 007 presumably had to reach for hearing protection when Paul McCartney was commissioned to write the theme song for Live and Let Die – but for years, the Bond themes pandered to their hero’s tastes, invariably coming from artists who were more likely to be found playing the Talk of the Town than the Marquee club.
That changed dramatically in the 80s. The more anachronistic the character of Bond became, the more the producers attempted to appeal to a younger audience through music. In recent years, they’ve tried everything from grunge (the late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell) to
Madonna to an awkward duet between Jack White and Alicia Keys. But even so, commissioning Billie Eilish seems striking: it tells you as much about the 18-year-old’s ascent to the kind of artist your grandparents have heard of as it does the Bond franchise’s desire to appear hip.