Shirley Bassey - Diamonds are Forever (Diamonds are Forever: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Written by John Barry & Don Black.
John Barry - Alone Blues (The Ipcress File: Original Soundtrack Album)
John Barry - Main Title (The Ipcress File: Original Soundtrack Album)
“The Ipcress File represents Barry’s only significant non-Bond spy scoring. Barry avoids the bombast of a typical Bond score by using smaller scale orchestration featuring vibes, piano, guitar, and most notably, a cimbalom (a melancholy-sounding stringed instrument traditionally played by Hungarian Jews or gypsies).
‘The Ipcress File was like my homage to The Third Man,’ Barry recounted. ‘I knew that was how I wanted to do it from the start, but obviously I wasn’t going to use a zither.’”
-Kristopher Spencer, Film and television scores, 1950-1979
John Barry - You Only Live Twice (You Only Live Twice: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
John Barry - Follow Me (Follow Me: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
John Barry - Romance for Guitar and Orchestra, 3rd mvt (Deadfall: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Goldfinger - Shirley Bassey (vocals) Composed by John Barry for Goldfinger (1964)
“I went and stayed with John Barry for a couple of weeks [while my new home was under construction]. By then he was a top movie composer. He had made a big score for Zulu and was booked to write the music for The Ipcress File, which he did, magnificently.
During my stay, he was writing the music for a James Bond movie. I hadn’t realized that there was such a big drawback to staying with a composer: they compose all day and in John’s case, all night. You wind up with no voice from shouting above the music. John could work twenty-four hours at a stretch, and as he would not accept rent, I took on the role of a helpful gofer to his driven genius. I made tea and sandwiches, did the tidying up, and ran errands as he slaved away at the piano. One night I got no sleep at all, as over and over again for hours on end right until dawn he worked on the same tune.
I slept for short periods, but would wake up when the music stopped. I had gotten so used to it that the silence bothered me. I decided to get up and make coffee for John. I entered the room and found him slumped exhausted over the piano. He had obviously finally finished the one tune that he had been slaving on all night. I made him some coffee and he played it for me as the sun came up and warmed the room. Not only was I the first person to hear this tune, I heard it and heard it all night long.
‘What’s it called?’ I asked him when he finished playing. ‘It’s Goldfinger’ he replied - and fell fast asleep on the piano.
Shortly after that my house in Albion Chase was ready and I moved into my own home for the first time. A unique joy. That night I fell asleep in my strange new surroundings humming Goldfinger to make myself feel at home.”
-Michael Caine, in his autobiography What’s It All About?
John Barry - Off Again (Follow Me: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
John Barry - Meeting with Grantby & Fight (via The Ipcress File: Original Soundtrack Album)
Q. It’s a much more low-key score and film [as compared to Barry’s scores for James Bond films]
John Barry: Absolutely. Even the fight scenes. All the Bond scenes were all loud noises. But in The Ipcress File, [director] Sidney Furie did this lovely fight scene outside of Albert Hall, where they’re in the distance, on the top of the steps, and I have that arpeggio music going against it, and it was wonderful.
Because you saw these two stupid men. It made you realize how stupid physical violence is. It had such a different effect, and I think a very penetrating effect, from what violence in the movies is all about.
-excerpted from Overtones and undertones: Reading Film Music
John Barry - A Man Alone (The Ipcress File: Original Soundtrack Album)
John Barry - Alone Again (via The Ipcress File: Original Soundtrack Album)
John Barry Orchestra - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (James Bond Theme) (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
