Photo by Ulf Meyer on Unsplash

Writing’s On The Wall

The theme of 2015’s Spectre is “Writings On The Wall”, by Sam Smith. The song reminds me of the campy, Roger Moore-era James Bond themes. With Sam Smith’s crooning falsetto, it feels more in league with songs like: “Nobody Does it Better” (from The Spy Who Loved Me), “All Time High” (from Octopussy) and “For Your Eyes Only”.

The score of 2015’s Spectre is by the iconic composer, Thomas Newman. Within the soundtrack, he has a lovely 2 minute version of this piece simply titled, Writing’s On The Wall – Instrumental. Newman’s instrumental version offered a more cinematic and orchestral take on the song — so I based my fingerstyle guitar arrangement on his version.

Radiohead also completed a theme for Spectre but ultimately lost out to Sam Smith’s Writings On The Wall. Here’s the opening sequence of Spectre set to Radiohead’s theme. It works amazingly well.

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How to play Writing’s On The Wall | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for this piece is beautifully written across 2 pages. I recommend this piece for intermediate guitar players and up. Enjoy! The guitar tab is available below:

My song structure looks like this, in accordance with the guitar tab:

Intro, Verse 2x, Pre-chorus

Chorus, Chorus End

Intro, Pre-chorus, Chorus End

End

**SPECTRE (2015): Writing’s On The Wall | fingerstyle guitar

This song is played in standard tuning, with a capo on the 1st fret.