Live and Let Die (film) and orchestrated the "James Bond Theme", was unavailable during production. Broccoli and Saltzman instead asked Paul McCartney to write the theme song. Since McCartney's salary was high and another composer could not be hired with the remainder of the music budget, George Martin, who had been McCartney's producer while with The Beatles, was chosen to write the score for the film. "Live and Let Die", written by McCartney along with his wife Linda and performed by their group Wings, was the first true rock and roll song used to open a Bond film, and became a major success in the
Live and Let Die (novel) which for sheer excitement have not been surpassed by any modern writer of this kind". The reviewer for "The Daily Telegraph" felt that "the book is continually exciting, whether it takes us into the heart of Harlem or describes an underwater swim in shark-infested waters; and it is more entertaining because Mr Fleming does not take it all too seriously himself". George Malcolm Thompson, writing in "The Evening Standard", believed "Live and Let Die" to be "tense; ice-cold, sophisticated; Peter Cheyney for the carriage trade". Writing in "The New York Times", Anthony Boucher—a critic described by Fleming's biographer, John Pearson,