In August, the New York Times reported that Paul McCartney, the lead singer of Wings, had written and recorded a song for Destiny, the spiritual follow-up to the Halo series, developed by Bungie and published by Activision.
Play for pay isn't new for Paul McCartney. In fact, the musician has a talent for turning contractual obligations into catchy tunes, like "Live and Let Die" and "Wonderful Christmas Time." The Beatles' only performance in Kansas City happened on a scheduled off day because the band couldn't refuse the ridiculous amount of money thrown at them by Charles Finley, the owner of the Kansas City Athletics, who went from an offer of $60,000 to $150,000 — at the time, the single highest payment for a single performance. The band's song "Kansas City" would later appear, fittingly, on "Beatles for Sale."
Anyway, the point is McCartney is familiar with taking good money for a big job and doing fine with it. So it's surprising how mediocre, if not outright bad, this Destiny song is. I mean, it's like McCartney's reading from my junior high poetry journal:
We will build bridges
Up to the sky
Heavenly light surrounding you and I
And
Some hope for the future
Some wait for the call
To say that our destiny
Will be the best of all
Was he required to say "Destiny" and "best of all" in the same sentence?
Please don't let this be the last song Paul McCartney writes. If it is, I'll never forgive Activision, Bungie and whatever management team brokered this deal.
Thanks to Kilo Juliett for uploading this footage from Destiny's credits sequence.
Update September 11th, 8:40PM: UMG's pulled the original video, but it's been reposted numerous times elsewhere. Things pick up around 2:15 in the one below: