Thunderball (Thunderball)

Tom Jones sang this as though the fate of civilization depended on the final note being sustained long enough to bring the walls down. The song is built around the full weight of orchestral Bonds — lush strings, dominant brass, a rhythm section that walks rather than runs — and it moves with the confident swagger of a man in a tuxedo who has never doubted himself for a moment. Jones's voice is a force of nature in the most literal sense: a baritone instrument of extraordinary power, capable of filling a concert hall without microphones, used here with the theatrical timing of someone who understands that volume is only interesting in relationship to silence. The arrangement is pure Ken Adam set design in musical form — operatic, slightly excessive, completely committed to its own grandeur. The subject matter is violence dressed as mythology, danger reframed as destiny, and Jones sells every syllable without irony. There is something almost camp about the whole enterprise, and yet the commitment is absolute, which transcends camp into its own category of sincerity. This is the song for the moment you want to feel like something larger than your ordinary life — not aspirationally but convincingly, as though the music has temporarily expanded the dimensions of the room.