Chris Cornell on stage; (below) Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale

For the first time since 1987 a male singer has sung the theme song of a James Bond film. This is what musician Chris Cornell has to say about writing and performing You know my name for the opening credits of Casino Royale.

Is doing the Bond theme a double-edged sword — an honour plus all the scrutiny you would be getting?

A little bit, yeah. My concern about the scrutiny had to do really with the moment, it had to do with the producers and the director for this particular movie, because after seeing a rough edit of the film I was really motivated to write this song for this film. I think it’s such a departure for the franchise, and I think it’s going to have a huge impact on commercial film-making.

What I didn’t want to do was be one of three or four people writing a song. I’m busy, and that’s not conducive to really putting your blood and sweat into. I was assured this wouldn’t be the case, that they believed in me and I was the right guy for the job.

Were you given a title for the song as well?

No, not for the song. I was extremely disappointed to find out that the title of the film was Casino Royale. If someone said “write a song about Live & Let Die” that’d be real easy. Or Thunderball. Casino Royale was very disappointing because I knew that no one was going to want a song called that and no one was going to want to hear anyone sing that.

Were you a Bond fan before?

I’m a huge Beatles fan for one thing; the song Live & Let Die had a big impact on me as a kid, and Sean Connery as James Bond had a big impact on a child of 9, 10 or 11 years. It was very big in America, and obviously for teenage boys the superspy with an Aston Martin and the gadgets and the revolving door or European women… everybody likes that.

Were you given any parameters to adhere to on this?

The suggestions were the most infuriating — “think outside the box”, “go do whatever you want”. Working with some parameters, with some limitations, I’m actually really good at. If you can do anything you want you have to figure out what that is, so really I just had to kind of wait. I kept imagining the first several minutes of the film that I was shown, and where they said “your song will start here”. And eventually I came up with this.

Did you know the sort of song that they weren’t looking for?

Yeah, my impression — and this is from listening to the last several — is that there were some songs that were thematically similar and these spy movie music elements being brought into it sounded more like the Perry Mason theme than James Bond. Literally.

Where does recording a Bond theme song rank in your career achievements to date?

It’s one of those things that stands out. Had I not done it I wouldn’t have done it and there would be no “oh then he did the Bond theme”, but because I have done it it’s there, it’s something I’ll probably talk about for the rest of my career, which is great. I don’t think Paul McCartney would ever have written Live & Let Die for a record. And it’s the same thing for me; I’d never have the opportunity to write or record a song like this again. It lives in this James Bond, imaginary superspy world.