Spectre

This song was commissioned for the 2015 Craig-era James Bond film, Spectre. The song was rejected by the film producers, and Radiohead released it as a B-side to the 2016 single ‘Burn the Witch’.

Initially, Radiohead had offered Man of War, a song written in the 90’s during The Bends sessions. The song was later retooled for OK Computer, but it never made the cut for the initial release. As the story goes, Bond producers liked Man of War but scrapped it after realizing it was pre-recorded. [Pre-recorded material has implications for the Academy Awards. Jonny Greenwood’s score for There Will Be Blood was nixed from contention due to previously recorded material.]

Thom Yorke has described Man of War as an ode to all Bond themes.

Radiohead went back to the drawing board with producer Nigel Godrich. They halted production (on their 2016 album, A Moon Shaped Pool) to write and record, Spectre — one of the greatest Radiohead songs ever. Inexplicably, the film’s producers rejected that song as well.

Instead, Sam Smith’s Writing’s on the Wall was used for the opening credits of SPECTRE. It’s a fine tune, but I can’t help but think that Radiohead’s theme would’ve lent some cache to a film that desperately need it. Here’s the opening sequence cut with the Radiohead version. It’s awesome.

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How to play Spectre | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for this piece is beautifully written across 3 pages. Spectre is better suited to intermediate guitar players and up. Happy playing! The guitar tab is available below:

In accordance with the guitar tab, my order of play looks like this:

Intro, Verse #1, Chorus 2x

Verse #2, Chorus 4x

Bridge, Verse #2, Chorus 4x.

You notice a trailing (. . . .) symbol in the intro. That’s just indicating that you’ll strum the chord 4 times. The guitar tab looks cleaner to me this way.

**Radiohead: SPECTRE | fingerstyle guitar

Spectre is played in standard tuning.