Songoftheday 3/30/14 - Dance into the fire That fatal kiss is all we need Dance into the fire to fatal sounds of broken dreams ...

Duran Duran - "A View To A Kill"
from the album A View To A Kill (Original Soundtrack) (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by the wildly popular British new wave band Duran Duran, who had finished off a successful 1984 with a big hit from their live album, "The Wild Boys", as well as a re-issued "Save A Prayer" that made the American top-20. After that, the "Fab Five" took a break, and split off for two separate side-projects, with lead singer Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes, and Roger Taylor naming themselves Arcadia, while Andy and John Taylor hooked up with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson for the Power Station. The quintet got back together, though, to record the theme to the fourteenth James Bond movie, A View To A Kill. The single, written with Bond orchestra master John Barry and produced by Chic's Bernard Edwards (who also did the Power Station's album), fused the classic "Bond" sound with DD's new wave leanings, and became the highest-charting theme in the franchise's history...

"A View To A Kill" became the first and so far only "Bond" theme to go to #1 in the US in July of 1985, while nicking the Billboard rock radio chart at #42. Internationally, the single was one of their biggest, going top-ten everywhere in the world; it topped the single chart in Italy, and went to #2 in both the UK and Ireland. It would be the last top-40 single featuring all five of the boys (they would reunite in 2006 for the excellent Astronaut album and have a couple minor pop hits).

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Here's the song as you would've seen it on the opening credits of A View To A Kill....

At the time the single made it to #1, Duran Duran performed at the Live Aid charity concert, where unfortunately Simon's one bum note overshadowed their performance...

 ..and here they are again in 1988...

...and yet again in 2004 at Wembley..

And finally, a performance with Mick Ronson from 2011...

Up tomorrow: a married songwriting duo strikes out on their own.