Daniel Craig in James Bond movie Spectre (Image: JAMES BOND)
Radiohead’s participation in the Spectre soundtrack turned out to be an “utter nightmare” and a “huge waste of time”.
actor and film director Sam Mendes had both been huge fans of the band, leading to the alt rock group initially being invited to contribute a signature track to the 2015 movie Spectre. Radiohead’s involvement in Spectre was considered so set in stone that a mystery man even placed a £15,000 bet on it, leading a panicked William Hill to suspend all bets in case of inside knowledge.
Yet it wasn’t to be. The first track the group submitted, ‘Man Of War’, had been a “homage to Bond themes”, according to singer Thom Yorke – but one crucial failing led to it being rejected.
It hadn’t specifically been created for the film, making it ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Original Song – and so producers urged the band members to think again. They did, and came up with ‘Spectre’ – but again it was rejected, leaving the band’s frustrated producer Nigel Godrich to furiously brand it a “waste of time”.
Discussing the painful rejection later with the NME, Thom exclaimed: “That was just politics as far as I can work out. Who knows what was going on there?” Even worse, the group had paused work on their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool, to prioritise a soundtrack which they’d end up never appearing on.
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Thom Yorke tried to create a song for James Bond’s Spectre (Image: Getty)
Bond producer Barbara Broccoli later clarified that the song had arrived too late to be included, by which time they’d already picked ‘s ‘Writing’s On The Wall’.
However, it was a decision which was met with contempt by furious fans.
On one post, someone argued: “Whoever chose not to have Radiohead’s Spectre as the Bond movie’s theme song is insane The song isn’t the absolutely worst song I have ever heard but man, RH’s Spectre is leagues better… it had me on the verge of weeping earlier today, it’s so good.”
A second chimed in: “It’s even worse when you see it used in the opening credits. Absolute tragedy it wasn’t used.”
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Sam Smith’s Writing’s On The Wall was featured instead (Image: Getty)
A third then savagely swiped: “It was a wise decision to go with Sam Smith’s Writing’s on the wall. A mediocre movie deserves an equally mediocre theme song.”
Bond producer Mendes joined in with the disappointment, telling Radio 6: “[It was] an utter nightmare… We had this beautiful song and we weren’t able to use it, but it’s somehow cooler for Radiohead to have written a song that wasn’t used.”
However Radiohead’s lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, who suggested that the song might have been “too dark” for a Bond movie, is glad things turned out the way they did.
It left the group free to release the song on their own terms, without any restrictions from the James Bond team, and Greenwood delightedly told the : “We get to have it back and it’s ours and we got to put it out. We’re really, really proud of it.”