Coldplay Have Tried to Write Themes for Five 'James Bond' Movies

"I don't know if we're spiritually on the same trip"

BY Megan LaPierrePublished Oct 18, 2021

Fresh off the release of the emoji opus Music of the Spheres last week, Coldplay's Chris Martin has revealed that the band struggled far more with another high-concept project: they apparently spent 20 years trying to write a theme for a James Bond movie.

In an interview with NME, Martin discussed the group's unsuccessful attempts to craft a ditty worthy of a 007 film score.

"We kept trying to write one for 20 years, but never submitted them," the frontman told interviewer Thomas Smith. "We have Bond themes for about five movies,"  he said — and there are now 25 films, so Coldplay's attempts span one-fifth of them. "But they're not very good, honestly."

Martin elaborated: "Also, I don't know if we're spiritually on the same trip as James. As much as I like the films, I don't know if us singing would do it for him," he admitted. "He'd be like, 'That's not what I'm into at all, fellas. I like guns and shit; all this [sic] hippie stuff just isn't going to work.'"

The musician prefers the approach of Billie Eilish's platinum-selling No Time To Die theme — assisted by her brother Finneas and composer Hans Zimmer — for Daniel Craig's final film. The Gen-Z auteur is the youngest artist to take on what others find to be an insurmountable task.

"I mean, [Finneas and Billie] wrote 'Ocean Eyes,'" he said, referring to Eilish's debut single. "I know when a song is great when my body goes into absolute furious jealousy for a minute. When I heard that song, I was like, 'You fucking bastards.'"

Okay, but just imagine a slow-motion Bond fight sequence set to "Viva La Vida"...

The search for the next James Bond is set to begin in 2022 — and maybe it'll be someone Martin feels more spiritually aligned with.

Coldplay as a whole are aligned with the idea of having a 12-record catalogue, meaning they only have three more albums left. They're also skipping Canada on their recently announced low low-carbon world tour.

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