Adding to the delay issues, Barry had written large amounts of the score around the original theme and woven it throughout the score (along with the recurring underwater "Search For Vulcan" motif). The producers' decision to change the film's theme song so close to the release date meant that only some of the film's soundtrack had been recorded for release on LP. The lyrics of Cash's "Thunderball" describe the film's story. Jones said of the final note, "I closed my eyes and I held the note for so long when I opened my eyes the room was spinning." Ĭountry musician Johnny Cash also submitted a song to Eon productions titled "Thunderball" but it was not used. Tom Jones, who sang the new theme song, allegedly fainted in the recording booth after singing the song's final, high note. īarry teamed up with lyricist Don Black and wrote "Thunderball" in a rush. When it was planned to use the Warwick version in the end titles Shirley Bassey sued the producers with the result being that neither version was heard in the film and different instrumental versions of the theme appeared on the High Fidelity (Bassey's) and Stereo (Warwick's) soundtrack LPs. The song was removed from the title credits after United Artists requested that the theme song contain the film's title in its lyrics. Neither version was released until the 1990s. When there were concerns with the length of the track compared to the needed titles, it was later rerecorded by Dionne Warwick as Bassey was not available and featured a longer instrumental opening designed so the lyrics would not be heard until after the title "Thunderball" appeared in Maurice Binder's title design. The song was originally recorded by Shirley Bassey. Barry had thought he could not write a song about a vague "Thunderball" term or the film's story, so his song was a description of the character James Bond.
The title was taken from an Italian journalist who in 1962 dubbed agent 007 as "Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", which was written by John Barry and Leslie Bricusse. The original main title theme to Thunderball was titled " Mr.