Goldfinger

This song was the theme for the James Bond movie Goldfinger. Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse wrote the lyrics and John Barry the music. It was Shirley Bassey's biggest hit.

On Shirley Bassey's website, she says about Goldfinger: "John Barry wrote the music. We were touring in England at the time and he was conducting for me. One day he said, 'There is this new song for the James Bond film Goldfinger and we'd like you to do it. I know your rule that you will never listen to a song unless there are words. There are no words, I must warn you - there's only the music, which I have done. And we're waiting on the lyric.' And because we had such a wonderful relationship on our tour I said to John, 'Well, I'll listen to it. I'll break my rule.' And thank God I did, because the moment he played the music to me, I got goose pimples, and I told him, 'I don't care what the words are. I'll do it.' And fortunately the words were great."

Barry didn't have a lot of direction when he got the assignment to write this song, but he knew it had to be about a villain, which was very unusual subject matter for a song. He took inspiration from the classic song Mack The Knife, which he considered the ultimate villain tribute, and came up with the music to introduce Bond's nemesis. The melody was written to accommodate the word "Goldfinger."