It appears that there were never plans for someone else to sing the theme for Live and Let Die, despite Paul McCartney’s version of the story. Researchers, Adrian Sinclair and Allan Kozinn found paperwork that proved James Bond producers specifically contracted with Wings to open the 1973 movie, with an alternative version set for a club scene for later.
Kozzin stated that, “This has been a longstanding story in the music world – the producers of Live and Let Die wanted to replace McCartney with a female singer, Actually, the internal communications revealed that it was always in the contract that there would be two versions of the song.” With Producer George Martin adding, “told the story many times. Paul’s picked it up many times.”
In one of the largest retellings of the story, McCartney said that Bond film producers Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli initially listened to the track and said to George, “‘That’s great, a wonderful demo. Now when are you going to make the real track, and who shall we get to sing it?’ And George said, ‘What? This is the real track.’”
Recovered contracts show that McCartney was actually paid $15,000 for “Live and Let Die,” and then continued to earn an additional $50,000 through a share of the rights, with a total of roughly $400,000 in current terms. On top of that, a memo also confirmed that McCartney and “his musical group Wings will perform the title song under the opening titles.”
Kozinn added that, “When we saw those documents we couldn’t help but think it was just a misunderstanding, Martin wouldn’t have been familiar with the terms of that contract, but Paul certainly would have. One of the things we discovered is that, if it’s a good story, Paul will go with it. He didn’t have any reason to assume that anybody would see that contract.”
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