Nobody Does It Better

the spy who loved me

Marvin Hamlisch wrote the music and Carole Bayer Sager the words, and Carly Simon sang it for The Spy Who Loved Me, the first Bond theme since Dr. No not to share its film's title, though the phrase turns up in the lyric anyway. It spent three weeks at number two in America, held there by “You Light Up My Life”, which also beat it to the Oscar.

the last song

It was one of Thom Yorke's favourites, and Radiohead first played it on MTV's Most Wanted in Camden on 18 August 1995, to end their set, and that stayed its job. Ten of the gigs it was played at finished with it.

At Hartford on 1 October 1995, their last night supporting R.E.M. in America, they closed with it and dedicated it to the headliners. R.E.M.'s Mike Mills had warned them to expect a farewell joke, and Andrew Mueller, who was there for Melody Maker, saw him send a radio-controlled car at Ed O'Brien during the set. The band fled the stage expecting worse, and R.E.M. came out with champagne to toast them before they were fetched back.

Colin Greenwood, asked by Willamette Week in March 1996 what the band played at soundchecks, said it was a hard question because the answer was so boring, but they did no covers of the Welsh hard rockers Budgie, and no “Wichita Lineman”.

We do have a rather fine cover of “Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon. If a gig goes really well we sometimes whip it out.

colin greenwood · willamette week, march 1996

At the fan-club night at the London Astoria on 3 September 1997 they teased it at the end of “No Surprises” and came back to play it in the encore. It has not been heard since Blackpool on 7 September 1997.

their own bond song

On the 1995 tour they were playing it alongside “Man of War”, their own Bond pastiche. Twenty years later the producers of Spectre asked Radiohead for a real theme. The band offered “Man of War”, which was turned down, and then wrote “Spectre”, which was turned down too.