Chris Cornell Discusses 'You Know My Name'
The BBc News features a new interview with Chris Cornell. Speaking about his title song for Casino Royale, ‘You Know My Name,’ Cornell explains how he got the job, why the song is not included on the official soundtrack, and much more…
Cornell explains that from the beginning, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli wanted something different from previous Bond songs. ‘They were pretty clear about what they didn’t want–which was a song that had already been sitting around that I would just cleverly adapt to the new film, which happens quite a lot apparently,’ he says. ‘They also didn’t want to echo any recent Bond theme songs.’
‘Their attitude was that they wanted somebody who vocally would be unapologetically masculine. David Arnold’s quote was that they didn’t want the “bird with the broken wing” type of singing.’
Casino Royale was also the first time Cornell saw the film before composing the song for a soundtrack. ‘This is the first time that I actually sat and watched an early edit of the film, as well as having a script and a book all to go by–that’s more than you almost ever get,’ he says. ‘A James Bond film and theme song are integral to each other in a way that doesn’t exist in any other film franchise.’
‘Daniel Craig’s Bond is where [the inspiration] comes from,’ said Cornell. ‘It’s the reason why I wanted to do it, it’s where the lyrics were inspired from. It is partially inspired by the story, as acted by him, and partially from personal feelings and experience.’
As many Bond fans already know, ‘You Know My Name’ is the first song since 1983’s ‘All Time High’ for Octopussy that hasn’t used the title of the film. According to Cornell: ‘As soon as I heard Casino Royale was the title of the movie, I definitely knew I wasn’t going to have those two words in the song. And no-one told me that I should. I couldn’t imagine it fitting into a song lyric that would come out of my mouth.’
The one question Bond fans have been asking is why ‘You Know My Name’ is not included on the official Casino Royale soundtrack. According to Cornell: ‘The song is going to be released as a single in the UK at some point. But it’s also going to be on my next album, which is out in February. It was a decision of mine not to have it on the film soundtrack. I wanted it to be mine.‘
Order the Casino Royale soundtrack from Amazon.co.uk
Order the Casino Royale soundtrack from Amazon.com
Interview with David Arnold – Scoring Casino Royale
Stay tuned to CBn for all the latest Casino Royale coverage.