The Living Daylights (song)

"The Living Daylights" is the theme song from the 1987 James Bond film of the same name, performed by Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha and included on the film's soundtrack album. It was written by guitarist Pål Waaktaar. A revised version of the song was included on the band's third studio album, '' Stay on These Roads'' (1988).

Origin and recording

John Barry is credited as co-writer and producer, and the initial release of the song on the 1987 soundtrack of '' The Living Daylights'' was his version. A second version of the song, re-worked by A-ha in 1988, later appeared on their third studio album, '' Stay on These Roads''.

When interviewed on a late-night show in 1987, Barry said that he found working with the band exhausting secondary to the band's insistence on using their own version of the song for release. In an interview with ''Hot Rod'' magazine, keyboardist Magne Furuholmen said that " he band'sfight with Barry left a rather unpleasant aftertaste. Apparently, he compared us to Hitlerjugend in a newspaper interview."

Lead singer Morten Harket stated in an interview with Paul Lester of ''The Guardian'' in 2016 that Barry was "honestly not an easy guy to like. He was very strange in that he started to befriend us by talking bad about Duran Duran. He made some degrading comments about them and what they'd been doing and that didn't sit well with any of us". Harket stated further that; "he then made some derogatory comments about women and it was all uncalled for. There will be people who knew him who will have a very different view of him. But he didn't go down well with us."

In an interview with ''NME'' in 2022, Harket commented further that; "It was down to a clash in mentalities. His mentality was the way it was and it surfaced in various ways. None of us agreed with his worldview and the way he spoke about other human beings. We couldn't speak a common language between each other. But his input in the song was essentially just making a few changes to the verse melody: the rest was already there."

Waaktaar stated that although Barry produced the track, he never contributed to the songwriting process and should not have been credited as such. (The band Duran Duran made similar claims after they worked briefly with Barry on the theme to the previous Bond film, "A View to a Kill", in 1985.) The situation grew even more tense when Harket and company informed the producers they would not attend the London premiere. "We fell out with Bond composer">James_Bond.html" ;"title="nowiki/>James Bond">Bond composerJohn Barry, and also the whole Bond Albert R. Broccoli">Broccoli