Reassembling The Main Title From "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"

On May 27, 2025 news broke, via Variety, that La-La Land Records would be issuing John Barry's score to the sixth James Bond film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (OHMSS), on CD at some point during the summer. A little over a month later on July 1, the album was released. I've had the great pleasure of producing and mixing this release and wanted to share a little behind the scenes insight into one of the tracks.

Album cover for La-La Land's new "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" CD

The score to OHMSS has been issued basically two times since 1969 on various formats. There was the original 38 minute program which has also been issued on LP, CD, high-res digital and probably a few tape formats. In 2003, my friend and colleague Lukas Kendall produced a 79 minute single CD expanded version which presented a quasi version of the original 1969 soundtrack album and a slew of additional tracks. That album brought a lot of happiness to listeners over the last 20+ years, myself included.

The original LP cover. Note Domino from "Thunderball" on the right.

For this new La-La Land Records release I had access to the same material used for the 2003 album. These were the original 1/2" analog scoring masters while the song "We Have All The Time In The World" was recorded to 1" tape. These tapes contained most of the takes recorded for the picture and original album. One reel couldn't be located, presumably damaged, but otherwise, all of the takes were there...it only required some looking.

While no two projects are the same, they usually have one thing in common: all of the takes are available, uncut and in recording order. That wasn't the case with OHMSS. What happened with these tapes is after scoring, the album was constructed by physically splicing these first generation recordings. Let me repeat that. The tapes that went through the machine as the score was being performed were cut to create the 1969 album. The optimist in me would like to think this was done to preserve the first generation quality, while the realist in me thinks it was done to save time and money. Regardless, the tapes were cut.

What this means is anything that wasn't on the original soundtrack album survived in uncut condition. If there were ten takes recorded of a cue not on the OST, I had all ten takes intact on the scoring masters. But if there were ten recorded takes for a cue presented on the album and the album used take ten, that performance was removed from the master reel and placed onto an "album" reel. Still first gen, but separated from the scoring masters. But wait, there's more! Let's say for the soundtrack album the producers decided that take ten's opening should be replaced with the opening of take eight. That means another take would be physically cut out of the master reel and edited together with take ten on the album reel. Still first gen, but now spliced together onto another tape. So now let's say you hear the engineer on the album reel call out "1m5 [reel 1, music 5], take 8" and the cue plays in full, would you assume take eight was the only take used on the album? I would! What I've just described is exactly what happened with the "Main Title" for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." And sure enough, this intercut performance is what was heard on the 1969 album and other releases. More on that in a bit.

In the meantime, this release isn't only presenting the original soundtrack album. As with other expanded Bond albums from La-La Land Records, this release presents the cues as intended by the filmmakers. That means there may be some different takes as heard in the film than on the album. It's the same musical composition but a different performance. The "Main Title" is one of those cues. And here's how I figured it all out. This seems obvious now, but at the time I had a lot of confusion. Part of this is because I didn't have any paperwork to guide me and also the unusual methodology described above to create the album in 1969.

There were two things that made me realize the album "Main Title" was intercut. First, and really the dead giveaway, was the opening didn't match the mono film audio I was using for reference. To restore these scores properly, I always go back to the original film audio to use as a guide for take selection. These are the performances the composer, music editor and other filmmakers deemed satisfactory for the film. The second thing is when I realized these tapes had been cut. On the scoring master reel with the "Main Title" recordings, take eight was completely absent. Hmmmm, this supported my theory that take eight was the full album take. But then when I got to take ten it had a vocal slate,  the opening and a smash cut to the ending, with no middle. Why would John Barry record this? What was the purpose? I'm slow sometimes. Armed with the mono movie audio, I lined up the opening of take ten with the mono movie ref and there it was, a perfect match! Then I moved on and checked the ending of take ten and again, it was exactly what's heard in the film. So where did the middle of take ten go? The album! This was when I realized the album reels contained intercuts. That meant anytime I heard an abrupt cut on the scoring masters a section was removed and placed onto the album reels. It happened again with the end of "This Never Happened To The Other Fella" and the opening of "We Have All The Time In The World – James Bond Theme."

The skill with which the original engineer cut these takes together is fantastic. I get to do it non-destructively in the computer with multiple attempts and precise crossfades. They got to do it with a razor blade and adhesive tape! It was done so well, I'm not sure anyone ever realized it was in fact two performances cut together. That could explain why the 5.1 home video remix created in the 2000s uses the album intercut for the "Main Title," presumably straight off of the album reel. For this new CD I've digitally reassembled take ten, making this the very first release of the film version of the "Main Title" to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in stereo. It only took 55 years.

The opening of the "Main Title" lined up in Pro Tools. Note for the first 8 seconds they are different.

The new 2-disc expanded release of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is available on CD now from La-La Land Records and the 007 Store. For more insight into this score and other James Bond films check out my interview on the "To Live and Let Die in L.A." podcast.