The Best James Bond Theme Songs

LICENCE TO KILL (1989)
SONG ''Licence to Kill'' by Gladys Knight DOSSIER John Barry retires. Michael Kamen, who'd scored Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, takes over. Kamen rerecords the Bond theme with Vic Flick and Eric Clapton, but it's never used. MICHAEL KAMEN ''At the time, I was very much the flavor of the month. This was after Lethal Weapon, and they decided I was the action-film guy—even though my mother didn't let me play with guns or read comic books.'' GLADYS KNIGHT ''I don't know if I'd do it again today. I'd do the project; it's just that particular thought [of a 'license to kill']. That bothered me for a long time. I don't advocate violence. Even though it's playacting, life's just too precious to me.'' KAMEN ''I had this idea to have Vic Flick and Eric Clapton play a new authoritative version of the theme.'' VIC FLICK ''We worked on it for two days, and did a video. I was going to be a big star. They sent it over to Michael Wilson and Cubby, but they didn't like it.''

PRESENTING PIERCE BROSNAN

GOLDENEYE (1995)
SONG ''GoldenEye'' by Tina Turner DOSSIER Title song written by U2's Bono and the Edge; score by avant-garde composer Eric Serra. TINA TURNER ''Bono and the Edge are neighbors of mine in the south of France. They came over and Edge played the song on my piano. Bono wanted to write the song 'cause he spent his honeymoon at Ian Fleming's house in Jamaica, which is called GoldenEye.''

TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997)
SONG ''Tomorrow Never Dies'' by Sheryl Crow DOSSIER John Barry protégé David Arnold takes over; 1997 Golden Globe award nominee for Best Original Song. DAVID ARNOLD ''I'd already done Stargate and Independence Day, but there's nothing quite like Bond.'' SHERYL CROW ''They don't give you a script or let you see anything. And you have to use their title. But it gives you carte blanche to do something atypical, without being criticized for taking a new direction.''

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999)
SONG ''The World Is Not Enough'' by Garbage DOSSIER David Arnold continues as the John Barry of the late '90s. Song goes to Garbage, despite an English tabloid report—erroneous, says the Bond camp—that Spice Girl Mel C. was up for the job. DAVID ARNOLD ''I met [Garbage singer] Shirley [Manson] at a Starbucks in London. We had buckets of coffee and I asked if she wanted to do it.'' SHIRLEY MANSON ''We were of course gutted that we weren't able to get a stab at writing the song, but we loved what David wrote. That we became part of the longest-standing franchise in the history of cinema is an added bonus.''