What makes a classic James Bond song? A sense of the epic, surely. Flaring brass, rippling strings. A melody-driven framework, an irresistible hook. Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die”, written for the eighth instalment of the film franchise, certainly ticks the right boxes. And yet when it was released ahead of the 1973 premiere, it must have puzzled. In the first 90 seconds alone we hear three disparate sound-worlds, each in a different tempo, juxtaposed with all the subtlety of a Walther PPK.

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