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Sam Smith's 'Writing's on the Wall' will be the new Bond theme song

Sam Smith's 'Writing's on the Wall' will be the new Bond theme song

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The song is available to preorder and will be released on September 25th

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The theme to the upcoming James Bond movie Spectre will be sung by British artist Sam Smith. The singer, who won four Grammys earlier this year including Best New Artist, announced the news on Twitter, describing it as "one of the highlights of my career." The theme is named "Writing’s On The Wall," and will be released on September 25th, a month before Spectre gets its first showing in the UK on October 26th. (The US release date for the film is November 6th.)

"It's the quickest I've ever written a song — it took 20 minutes."

In an interview with BBC's Radio 1, Smith said he'd recorded the track back in January. "I got called into the office with [producer] Barbara Broccoli and [director] Sam Mendes and they gave me the script, I read the script ... they said 'have a go at the song,'" said Smith, as reported by BBC News. "It's the quickest I've ever written a song — it took 20 minutes ... and they loved it!"

Smith was in the running to record the theme alongside fellow British artists Ellie Goulding and Radiohead, with the latter becoming a late favorite in July after an anonymous gambler placed a £15,000 ($23,000) bet on the band with bookmakers William Hill. It's the first time a James Bond theme has been recorded by a British male solo artist since 1965 (with Tom Jones' track for Thunderball). The theme for 2011's Skyfall was recorded by Adele, with the song winning the British artist an Oscar in 2013.