Songoftheday 2/19/13 - All I wanted was a sweet distraction for an hour or two....

Rita Coolidge - "All Time High"
from the album Octopussy (Original Soundtrack) (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #36 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4

Today's Song of the Day was the theme song from the 13th James Bond movie, Octopussy. It was recorded by Rita Coolidge, who by the 80s was more of an "oldies" type adult-contemporary singer, but she started out with a much more colorful history.

After graduating a sorority girl from a Florida college, Coolidge dated a string of folk-rock singers, including both Graham Nash and Stephen Stills from Crosby Stills and Nash (which contributed to the group splitting up), as well as Kris Kristofferson, whom she married for seven years. In 1969, she released her first hit single, "Turn Around And Love You", which scraped the bottom of the pop chart, peaking at #96. Two years later, Rita released her first self-titled album, however besides her first top-40 single in Canada, "I Believe In You", it wasn't a big success. On her third album, This Lady's Not For Sale, Rita scored a few minor hits in the US, including a top-40 adult-contemporary single with "My Crew".

After her marriage to Kristofferson in 1973, though, Coolidge's profile and success started to grow, with a string of "duets" with Kris, including a collaboration album Full Moon. That set spun off a big adult-contemporary hit with "A Song I'd Like To Sing".

 Her career would crest with the release of 1977's Anytime...Anywhere, a collection of mostly covers (with another Kristofferson song) that was much more cosmopolitan-sounding, and Rita was rewarded with three top-10 AC/top-20 pop hits. Her cover of Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher & Higher" went to #2 on Billboard's pop chart and was her biggest hit to date, while the followup, a version of Boz Skaggs' "We're All Alone", topped the adult-contemporary format. The latter also became Rita's first and only top-10 hit in England, while both the singles made the top-5 in Canada, which "We're All Alone" being her sole #1 pop hit in that country.

After that huge album, as disco started to rule the airwaves, her chart presence became more modest, though she did manage her first country top-40 hit in 1979 with "I'd Rather Leave While I'm In Love", a prophetic title during the time her marriage to Kristofferson was falling apart. From that record, Rita went four years without a top-40 pop hit.

On the preparation for Octopussy, the producers tried to find a singer for the theme song, including discussions with Laura Branigan, but settled on Rita on the advice of the Broccoli family that puts together the movies. Written by Bond stalwart John Barry with lyricist Tim Rice, they didn't even try to include the double-entendre title in the song, which wouldn't have fit the singer nor the easy-going track at all...

While "All Time High" was a moderate success on the pop chart, spending a month in the top-40 , is was a big hit on adult-contemporary, topping the chart there for four weeks in August of 1983 (it did the same in Canada). However, surprisingly for a Bond theme, the single was a relative flop in England, only reaching #75.

The single would be Coolidge's last Top-40 pop hit, though she continued to have success in the AC format, reaching the top-20 in 1984 with "Something Said Love". At the start of the 90s, she also managed to have a minor hit with "I Stand In Wonder".

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's Rita promoting the song on TV in 1983..

 Almost ten years later, Shirley Bassey, no stranger to singing James Bond themes, recorded the song...

In 1997, Britpop kings Pulp covered "All Time High" for a David Arnold compilation of Bond songs...

Most recently, Mark Wahlberg decimated the song in the movie Ted, singing at a Norah Jones concert...

Up tomorrow: British power-pop rockers say You can't change that.