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Licence To Kill – basically a feature-length episode of Miami Vice – is without a doubt the worst of the Bond films. So bad, indeed, that after the mild-mannered Timothy Dalton left the job on such a sour note, the producers waited a nervous six years before risking another film in the franchise. It's fitting, then, that the theme song should be so dire.

You can't deny that Gladys Knight tackles it with gusto, despite having to contend with a riff which could best be described as "poor man's Goldfinger", and an opening sequence which sounds like the start of the theme to British TV quiz show Blockbusters. (But perhaps this is a musical easter egg: as any man in the pub knows, the show's host Bob Holness was the first man ever to play James Bond – albeit on the radio.) I won't dwell on the terrible woodblock action which lurks in the background throughout.

The gear change, coming at the end of the middle eight, is suspensefully set up as the whole song slows down to a near-halt, before being tactlessly rammed up a gear with all the finesse of a rubber band snapping. Licence revoked.

I find that this particular truck driver's gear change is impossible to sing, because of the way it changes key in the middle of the phrase: whenever I try to replicate it, which I often do when wandering around the house bored, I find myself repeatedly starting and stopping in different keys, like when Spinal Tap attempt to sing "Heartbreak Hotel" at Graceland. So what starts out as "got a licence to kill" inevitably ends up with me holding two fingers to my ear going "since my baby left me".

Listen!

Related stuff

The twentieth "official" Bond film, the generically named Die Another Day, is (at the time of writing) in the process of being hawked at www.jamesbond.com. Once you're in (and as with all Flash-powered sites, you can't help instinctively clicking the "Skip Intro" button) there's a good selection of clips from various Bond films under the "Sounds" menu. But first you have to put up with Paul Oakenfold's tinny-sounding version of the James Bond theme, which does not bode well for this latest installment in the series. (Update: I've since seen Die Another Day, and it's very entertaining as Bond films go – but Madonna's offering is without doubt the worst Bond theme to date.)

Needless to say, www.007.com is also an official site, focusing on the James Bond "legend" in general, rather than the latest offering specifically.