The World Is Not Enough (song)

The song was written by composer David Arnold and lyricist Don Black. It was released as a single in November 1999, and was a No. 1 single in the UK for two weeks. It has since been re-released as a double A-side single with ‘The World Is Not Enough’ on the CD of the same name.

About The World Is Not Enough (song) in brief

Summary The World Is Not Enough (song)The song was written by composer David Arnold and lyricist Don Black. The lyrics reflect the film’s plot, with themes of world domination and seduction. The song and its accompanying soundtrack were released internationally by Radioactive Records when the film premiered worldwide at the end of November 1999. It reached the top forty of ten singles charts and the top ten of four. It was included on the James Bond compilation The Best of Bond… James Bond and Garbage’s greatest hits album, Absolute Garbage. Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson requested a small change in the lyrics, disliking the line ‘I know when to kiss and when to kill’, so Arnold and Black changed it to ‘I don’t want to kill you. I just want to make you feel good’ The song was released as a single in November 1999, and was a No. 1 single in the UK for two weeks. It has since been re-released as a double A-side single with ‘The World Is Not Enough’ on the CD of the same name, with a bonus track of ‘I Don’t Want to Kill You’ as the B-side. The single was released in the U.S. on November 30, 2000. It is the only James Bond song to feature on a double album, alongside ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ The single also appeared on a compilation of Bond songs called James Bond: The Best Of Bond, which was released on November 28, 2000, and includes ‘The Best of James Bond’ and the ‘Best of Bond’ box set.

The track was also featured on the greatest hits CD of Garbage’s first two albums, Version 2.0 and Version 3.0. The group recorded most of the song while touring Europe in support of their album Version 1. 0, telephoning Arnold as he recorded the orchestral backing in London before travelling to England. The band later finished recording and mixing the song at Armoury Studios in Canada. In September 1998 Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, owners of Eon Productions, chose David Arnold to compose the score for the nineteenth Bond movie. Arnold wanted a theme song marrying the classic Bond sound with the electronica that would influence most of his score. An orchestra would be required as audiences expect traditional elements in a Bond film, and without them The World is Not Enough would be seen as a generic action movie. By the first week of January 1999, Arnold completed the song’s outline and made a synthesizer-arranged demo recording in his recording studio. He played the demo for Wilson, Broccoli and Apted, who were ‘extremely pleased’ with the results. Arnold presented the song to MGM executives in Los Angeles, who initially disliked it because it was a more uptempo ballad. MGM asked Arnold to rewrite a three-note sequence considered too similar to a motif in earlier Bond themes. That month MGM offered the theme to Garbage for the final version of the film.