Paul McCartney was petrified he was going to “kill” an elderly person with his ‘Live and Let Die’ performance.
The Beatles legend introduced flames and pyrotechnics to his live shows many years ago to accompany his 1973 James Bond theme from the film of the same name starring the late Sir Roger Moore.
Paul can remember being scared that the production was going to shock a “90-year-old woman in the front row” to death but his fears were soothed when he saw how much she was “loving it”.
Appearing on his ‘A Life In Lyrics’ podcast, he said: “It’s a big song for us. We have pyrotechnics and it can get a little hot up there. As we know the explosions are going to happen, we look at the people in the front row and then “boom”. It’s great to just watch them and they look at each other and they are just shocked.
“In the early days we did it and there was an explosion. I noticed when we started it there’s like a 90-year-old woman, very old, in the front row. I suddenly go, ‘Oh, s***, we’re gonna kill her’. I can’t stop the song and go, ‘Cover your ears love.’ I look away and ‘boom’. Then I look back to her and she is loving it.”
The 81-year-old musician is proud that his Bond theme has endured for so many decades and that he was asked to provide the song for the eighth 007 movie, which was Roger’s debut as the British spy.
Paul said: “It was always a sneaky ambition to write a Bond song because, in some ways, I like to see myself, one portion of myself, as a jobbing writer. You require a song for the queen’s wedding, I’m your man.
“The equivalent of that for a lot people is the Bond song. You’ve written a Bond song, it’s a bit of an accolade.
“In this case, our record guy, who was handling The Beatles’ Apple Records, he knew somebody connected with the Bond franchise. One day we were just chatting and he said, ‘You don’t have interest in doing a Bond film, do you?’ ‘Yeah, I’d probably be interested,’ didn’t want to look too enthusiastic. ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll do it.'”
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