Almost from the start, when Sean Connery first appeared in the role of the suave secret agent in Doctor No and set the entire film industry in motion, the producers of the Bond films discovered a secret formula as long-lived as the secret agent himself.
Although in every Bond film produced by Eon, Monty Norman's characteristic and recognizable film theme appeared - here you are humming it in your head - they also contained a secret weapon, by which each film is recognizable just like our favorite villain the vodka-martini lover must liquidate: the title track.
It is impossible to think of Live and let others die (1973) and not to mention the group's apocalyptic rock opera Wings, or He looks at the murder (1985) without the group's grandiose title theme Duran Duran.
And all this before we call upon the mastery of Shirley Bassey in filmic unsubtlety with Goldfinger.
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And so, let's remember all those famous musicians who wrote the theme for Bond hoping for immortality, only to get a basket on the casting couch.
The latest to be given the chance to try out a Bond theme is Billie Eilish for No Time to Die, and the BBC's music editors recall some of the Bond themes that almost came close to triumphing...
Film: Operation Thunder (1965)
Lost to: Tom Jones
Better than your chosen theme? A tie
The most Bond line: Somewhere, there is a man who could stop the thing in time/ He is known by very few but he's feared by all in crime
"Thunderball, your fiery breath can burn the coldest man!" snarls the Man in Black, in a way that's at once emphatically campy and cold-blooded like an Easter Island statue.
Lyrically, Cash's failed Bond theme faithfully follows the film's plot - a coastal town terrorizing a ship with a huge bomb below deck - and the film's country style is full of ringing backing vocals and a grandiose brass section.
Tom Jones, of course, may have recorded a curated version, but Cash's effort is a champion of losers.
Alice Cooper, The Man With The Golden Gun
Movie: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Lost to: Lulu
Better than your chosen theme? No
The most Bond line: The man with the golden/Gun in his pocket/ The man with the golden/Gun in your face
In an alternate universe, Alice Cooper could have been the perfect Bond villain - or at the very least, his scene-stealing right-hand man (secret weapon - a flame-throwing guitar, perhaps?).
And in yet another alternate universe, he would have sung the theme song for a 1974 film with Roger Moore.
This restrained glam-rock restle is certainly not one of Cooper's monolithic classics, and besides, it has no points of contact with the film in question except for the title.
It's less of a stylized cocktail bar and more of a neighborhood pub at two in the morning while the jukebox plays The Sweet.
Movie: For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Lost to: Sheena Easton
Better than your chosen theme? No
The most Bond line: We both have our orders/ And a trick up the sleeve
You might be forgiven for thinking that this track, on Blondie's last studio album before their 17-year break-up, was one of pop's great coincidences, appearing just a year after Sheena Easton's theme for the film with Roger By the wall.
But it was no coincidence.
This song was originally chosen as the theme, but the producers decided on Sheena Easton at the last minute.
Blondie's attempt to enter the Bond universe backfired.
Pet Shop Boys, Theme For James Bond #1
Movie: Breath of Death (1987)
Lost to: A-ha
Better than your chosen theme? Yes
Most Bond-esque line: Like the silent Chris Lowe, there are no lines
The song that eventually became “This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave" for PSB albums from 1990 Behavior was originally chosen for Timothy Dalton's debut performance as Bond - the producers were impressed by the success of Duran Duran's "A View To A Kill" on the charts a few years earlier.
In the end, the choice fell on the Norwegian pop trio A-ha, but the song "uncle uncles who throw out hits" was finished, as BBC Kultura calls it, the very essence of the suburban din that this duet so well evokes.
It's not hard to imagine this with loud strings instead of synths in the background, while the odd Soviet grandiosity is just waiting to be unleashed.
Movie: The Golden Eye (1995)
Lost to: Tina Turner
Better than your chosen theme? Neither better nor worse
The most Bond line: The world will take us to the end/ Tomorrow's enemy is now a friend
If you've ever wondered what the Bond theme song would sound like when sung by the Swedish Eurodance group Ace of Base... well, you don't have to wonder anymore.
The band was auditioned for a possible Bond theme for Pierce Brosnan's debut appearance in 1995's The Golden Eye.
A demo was made, but it was later scrapped in favor of Tina Turner's version, written by U2's Bono and Edge.
This track - you can listen to the demo version here - eventually became “The Juvenile" on their 2002 album Da Capo.
Movie: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Lost to: Sheryl Crow
Better than your chosen theme? Yes
The most Bond line: The city streets are littered/ With the casualties/ The could haves/ The should haves/ And the would've beens
When the producers were looking for a song for Tomorrow never dies Pierce Brosnan, were in a particularly good mood, so they asked several bands to contribute.
One of those from the wider selection was i Pulp, a Britpop band that became a national treasure in the UK thanks to “common people" from 1995.
In true Bond ticking time bomb spirit, they didn't have much time to do it.
"It was very strange. They created an American Idol-type situation where they asked nine different artists to come up with a Bond song," the frontman said. Jarvis Coker for Time Out.
"They listened to nine different attempts to tomorrow never dies fit into the verses. We were told on Wednesday that the deadline was Friday.
"And so, I freaked out when they decided on Sheryl Crow."
Movie: Skyfall (2012)
Lost to: Adele
Better than your chosen theme? It is by bombast, not by the melody itself
Most Bond-like lyric: You don't have long/ I am on to you/ The time it has come to destroy/ Your supremacy
Bond's team didn't actually ask him for the song, but Muse might have offered it to them himself.
In a 2012 interview with the BBC, the band's drummer Dom Howard only laughed at the possibility that their hysterical rock opera could grace the film's opening credits.
But was he really just kidding? “It's got a slight hint of a Bond atmosphere - it even goes a la Live and Let Die crazy somewhere in the middle.
For all I know, they might use her for the next James Bond movie, but I don't know what's going on with that. I heard that Adele is doing it!".
Movie: Spektra (2015)
Lost to: Sam Smith
Better than your chosen theme? Yes
The most Bond line: The only truth that I could see/ Is when you put your lips to me
Radiohead seem at the same time as the band least likely to have anything to do with a Bond trailer and the most natural: their bookish, literary take on rock is more suited to art films than thrillers with shootouts, car chases and explosions of a classic Bond, and yet they have one of the best film music composers today.
This five-minute epic combines the stylized classic Johnny Greenwood with Tom Yorke's most eerie voice, and a brass and string backing that sways like a drunken orchestra on a rough sea.
The band recorded it during the sessions for the 2016 album A moon shaped pool; Bond's team, in the end, decided it was too dark.
Though given the end result - Sepktra's opening sequence has a distinctly creepy atmosphere, with all the Kraken-esque octopi and Mexican death masks - it was never going to be a job for Katy Perry and the like.
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