Some dreams don’t fade. They just wait. I’ve carried one in particular for a very long time: writing a theme song for a James Bond film. To go as iconic as Live and Let Die, if given the chance.
The inception probably started when I was four years old, hearing Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” for the first time. At that age, you don’t know you’re going to be a musician. You don’t know you’re absorbing something that will shape your creative DNA for the rest of your life. You just know it feels like something important.
That song still holds that spot in my mind’s ear. The drama. The shift from tender to explosive. The way it doesn’t just accompany the movie, it becomes inseparable from it.
To me, it’s the Bond theme. The standard. The one that proves what happens when music and film collide perfectly.
So when I decided to cover it, I wasn’t interested in replicating what Paul and Linda McCartney created. I wanted to take it somewhere else. Somewhere darker. Slower. More modern.
I sat down with my friend Chris Hellstrom, and we started building. The melodic flavor I love. The industrial edge he loves. Together, we shaped something that honors the original while standing on its own.
It retains that intense vibe, the danger, the elegance, the stakes, but it breathes differently. Heavier. More deliberate. Like the song is stalking you instead of announcing itself.
If you’ve never heard the original, do yourself a favor and listen to it. Then come back to this version. You’ll hear the lineage, but you’ll also hear what happens when two people who love a song refuse to just recreate it.
A young musician friend of mine heard our version and said, “Wow, that’s the coolest cover of a Guns N’ Roses song I’ve ever heard.”
I had to stop him. “It’s a Bond theme. Written by Paul & Linda McCartney.”
He had no idea. Zero. And honestly, that’s kind of the point. Songs outgrow their origins. They become whatever people need them to be in the moment they discover them.
But here’s the other part of this story, the one that stings a little.
I’ve always believed I’d get tapped to write a Bond theme someday. It’s one of those quiet ambitions that feels ridiculous to say out loud but refuses to go away.
I learned a brutal lesson early on. Years ago, I submitted a song for the first Iron Man film. The feedback I got from the music supervisor was: “We love the song. It’s perfect for the film. But you’re not famous enough.”
That kind of rejection doesn’t just sting. It cuts clean through. A samurai sword straight into the chest, thru the heart, and our your fuckin back.
The Bond franchise is owned by Amazon now, which makes the odds even longer. But stranger things have happened. Lesser-known artists have been given shots. Risks have been taken. Doors have opened when no one expected them to.
I’m not holding my breath. But I’m also not letting the dream go.
In the meantime, I’ve got this.
A version of “Live and Let Die” that exists because I refused to just admire the original from a distance. A version that takes one of the greatest theme songs ever written and asks: What if it sounded like this instead?
Paul McCartney was approached twice before he wrote “Live and Let Die.” The first time, for Diamonds Are Forever, he passed. It didn’t feel right. The second time, they gave him a copy of the book. He read it. He wrote the song.
Sometimes timing matters. Sometimes you have to wait for the right moment, the right story, the right spark.
This cover is my version of that. Not a Bond film. Not a commission from Eon Productions. Just two musicians who love a song enough to reimagine it.
If Paul McCartney hears this, I hope he loves it.
If Amazon MGM Studios and Eon Productions hear it, I hope they take a chance on a lesser-known artist for the next Bond theme.
If neither of those things happen, that’s fine too.
Because this version exists now. And sometimes that’s enough.
Give it a listen. Pass it along. Let it live.
Join the Jody Army and you’ll hear what comes next before anyone else does.
More to come.