Ed Sheeran got candid about a rather significant missed opportunity in his storied musical career. The “Shape Of You” singer, 31, revealed he had started to put pen to paper for the theme song on Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film, No Time to Die, when he got replaced by Billie Eilish! “I’m not gonna pretend it didn’t hurt not doing it,” he admitted on a recent episode of That Peter Crouch Podcast.
@edsheeran was shithoused out of doing a bond song. @007 You know what you have to do to right this wrong. pic.twitter.com/KQ1zXrl6bY
— That Peter Crouch Podcast (@PeterCrouchPod) October 21, 2022
The opportunity was first presented to Ed when famed Bond producer Barbara Broccoli approached the singer in 2017, per Rolling Stones. Barbara tapped Ed to write the theme song and off he went to do just that. “We’d done all the meetings, I had started writing it,” he explained on the podcast.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic threw a wrench in the works. And with the film’s music being the last part of production to be worked on, per Rolling Stone, by the time it came to the theme song, gears had been changed (including swapping out directors) and Billie was given the green light instead.
“I was within a f***ing gnat’s pube of doing one,” Ed said on the podcast. “But then they changed directors, changed scripts and that was it.”
Ed wasn’t turned off too much from the experience, however, as he said he would still be down for the chance to write the spy ditty. “But yea, if they came back I would be like yea, of course, yeah.”
If it were to happen, Ed would join Billie and a cavalcade of hitmakers taking on a James Bond theme such as Shirley Bassey (Diamonds are Forever, 1971), Paul McCartney & Wings (Live and Let Die, 1973), Tina Turner (GoldenEye,1995) and Nancy Sinatra (You Only Live Twice, 1967).
Billie, as fans would know, went on to write “No Time To Die” with her brother and collaborator Finneas, collecting their first number-one single in the UK and an Oscar to boot with their incredible version!