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Classic rock and 007 should have been the best of friends. However, one of the only classic rock tracks to appear in a James Bond movie was Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die.” Paul was worried his performance of the tune might kill someone. Here’s what happened next.

Paul McCartney thought ‘Live and Let Die’ pyrotechnics could be deadly

Paul ignores a lot of his solo material at his shows, but you can be assured that he’ll perform “Live and Let Die,” his theme song for the Bond movie of the same title. He often incorporates pyrotechnics into the performances. During a 2023 interview with PaulMcCartney.com, he was asked if he remembered any notable moments from live performances of the track. 

“In the early days of doing it with all the explosions, I remember this very old lady at the front,” the “Band on the Run” singer replied. “At a guess, I’d maybe say she was 90 or something. She was loving the show, and I’d started singing the opening lines of the song, ‘When you were young, and your heart was an open book.’ But then I looked at her and thought, ‘Oh God! We’re going to kill her! What do we do?'”

What happened next was unforgettable. “I carried on and got to the crucial bit, ‘Say live and let die’ and … boom! The explosions went off,” the “Silly Love Songs” star recalled. “I sheepishly looked over, expecting the worst, and she was going, ‘Yeah!’ She was loving it! So, we didn’t kill her; we thrilled her!”

What Paul McCartney was thinking when he wrote the song

Paul was asked if he wrote the song so he could work explosions into his shows. “No, not really,” he replied. “I thought it would just end up on the soundtrack of the film, as it did. But when we started performing it to big audiences, we got a bit creative and thought of all the explosions in Bond films.”

“Live and Let Die” ended up being a perfect track for Bond. Many of the earlier 007 outings featured traditional pop tunes as their theme songs. That sound is great, but it doesn’t necessarily pump people up. However, hard rock captures the masculine adrenaline rush of a good Bond movie in a way that the music of Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey ever could. Many later Bond themes, including Adele’s “Skyfall” and Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” leaned back on the traditional pop sounds of the 1960s rather than taking their cues from Paul’s masterpiece. 

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The surprising thing about ‘Live and Let Die’

“Live and Let Die” was a big hit for Paul. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, lasting on the chart for 14 weeks. The track appeared on some editions of the album Red Rose Speedway. That record reached No. 1 for three of its 32 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Official Charts Company reports that “Live and Let Die” reached No. 9 in the United Kingdom and lasted on the chart for 14 weeks. It’s interesting to think that the tune was more popular in the U.S. than in the U.K., considering that Paul and 007 are both British icons. Meanwhile, Red Rose Speedway peaked at No. 5 and lasted on the chart for 17 weeks.

“Live and Let Die” has some morbid lyrics but it never managed to kill an innocent concert-goer.

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