In the latest chapter of Amy Winehouse's well-oiled sorrows, producer Mark Ronson has publically taken himself and the singer out of the apparently fierce competition to draft a theme song for the next James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. It is not clear how close the pair ever were to a firm commitment from the movie's producers; Ronson said that there are "loads more really famous people" in the race, but that they had been "approached" to try their hand at it and had gotten as far as cutting a demo that, Ronson avers, "sounds like a James Bond theme." (Considering that "James Bond themes" run the gamut from swoony ballads performed by Louis Armstrong and Carly Simon to chaotic, weird attempts to rock the house by Duran Duran, that's a categorization that leaves one a lot of wiggle room.) Ronson also blamed the stalemate on Winehouse's well-publicized personal issues, including those with the demon rum, though the BBC reports that a spokesman for the singer insisted that "the decision was taken because she had 'other ideas' about how the song should be developed." (No one was prepared to comment on rumors that the real problem was that neither Winehouse or Ronson could think of any words that rhymed with "solace.")
Ronson has said that he hopes that, should the filmmakers decide to get really crazy and make another James Bond movie after this one, they will give Amy another shot at following in the steps of such rock and roll legends as Shirley Bassey, Sheena Easton, and A-Ha. (The closest thing to rock royalty in the James Bond Songbook is probably Wings, who probably agreed to do the theme for Live and Let Die as Sir Paul's way of letting 007 know that there were no hard feelings about the scene in Goldfinger where he told Shirley Eaton that drinking Dom Perignon at the wrong temperature was one of those things that simply aren't done, "like listening to the Beatles without earmuffs." If all else fails, Winehouse can always develop that demo and then quietly use it as filler on a record she releases thirteen years after the movie comes out. That's what Johnny Cash did with his song, "Thunderball."
