Are there melodic similarities between Goldfinger (the song) and Marion's Theme..?

[Sandor 797]

Remember reading that in an ancient analysis I found in a Dutch film music magazine. This was around 1994, but the 'allegation' never left my mind...

So; is it 'yes' or just a load of crap..?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Well you know both melodies...

What do YOU think?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Sandor 797]

I don't know... There is something about the melody that supports the lyrics 'The man with the midas touch' that vaguely resembles a melodic line from Marion's Theme, but other than that I can't hear a lot of similarities. At least not enough to make an issue out of. But the magazine did, even to a point where they rated Raiders pretty low based on this 'stealing allegation'.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I honestly don't hear it.

[Jilal 569]

Oh dear.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Maybe they were thinking of the Bond accompaniment figure that we hear at the beginning of the Bond theme and that appears around 0:52 of the Goldfinger theme, the one that slowly slides up and down chromatically on the scale notes 5-b6-6-b6-5. The same thing happens in the accompaniment of Marion's theme if you listen to the harmony in its opening bars. But it's not in the melody and it's not very prominent, so I wouldn't say the two have melodic similarities or that Williams stole anything from Goldfinger.

I'm always suspicious of these kinds of claims because if it really was there, more than one person would have said something about it.

[Incanus 5,714]

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

There isn't a similarity with Goldfinger per se, but more with a general harmonic progression/exchange that John Barry uses a lot (the OUT OF AFRICA Main Title is a great example), and one that's a staple of pop music and the Great American Songbook, and that's I -> iv. Hell, even the song that's playing on my radio right now (Next Year by Two Door Cinema Club) is using it! Another Bond song - Moonraker (B -> Em6) - has it, as does You Only Live Twice (B -> F#m -> Em6 -> B ) - though in the later it's separated by another borrowed chord (from the parallel minor scale - Bm) - F#m (AKA v).

It can be something of a cliché, but when it works it works. Here Williams is obviously evoking Golden Age Hollywood love themes by the likes of Steiner, Waxman, Tiomkin ec. It's still one of the best harmonic devices around for a creating a sense of romantic longing.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Great point, Prometheus. I think we can take the idea of iv giving that sense of romantic longing and extend it to the half-diminished ii7 chord, also borrowed from minor. That chord is actually the second chord we hear in Marion's theme and is also the second chord of Princess Leia's theme, another wonderfully "longing" piece of music. In both cases, the melody goes to scale degree 2 against the notes of a iv chord to give the ii7. And the sense of "longing" is brought on by the flat-6 degree common to both.

Interestingly, Williams does not leave this flat-6 as a gimmicky cliché that disappears after a bar or so, but works it into the entire theme in both pieces as it returns again and again, even to the final cadence, which both use the borrowed ii7 to remind us once more of that wistful flat-6 degree.

I have a soft spot for Princess Leia's theme in particular, which works incredibly well as a standalone concert piece - not that that's any criterion for good film music!

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Well, the half-diminished seventh "Tristan" chord is more the domain of classical theory. In jazz and popular music, it's seen as the minor sixth. I think the later better explains the function of the progression where talking about (iv6 or iv -> I rather than ii^ø7 -> I) - a kind of reverse of the tonic-dominant relationship, using the minor sub-dominant. This is because the in most of these cases, there is no sixth in the minor triad. That would mean a rootless half-dim 7th! Also, usually the melody (if there is one) in these progressions tends to revolve around the 9th and (major) 7th degrees of the iv's associated scale (the melodic minor). Once again the ii^ø7 is insufficient.

Also, thanks to John William's background in jazz, and his familiarity with the likes of George Gerswhin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn - I would say this is the popular tradition he inherited this trick from, and how he'd probably describe it if he had to analyse it himself.

You're right - Princess Leia's theme is another great example too, as are the love theme from TEMPLE OF DOOM and the main theme from BORN OF THE FOURTH OF JULY.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Well, it seems odd to me to mix together Roman numerals, which are used for analyzing classical music, with the Arabic numbers of jazz and pop. What I mean is that iv6 looks like a classical chord symbol meaning iv in first inversion because the 6 is an interval above the bass. Em6 of course is the jazz/pop symbol meaning an E minor chord with added 6th above the root, not necessarily the bass.

I think that there's a limitation in talking about the function of a chord in jazz/pop music because the chord symbols used there don't include that information. Only the Roman numeral does that, but then that's classical. It's just too bad that there is no way to discuss harmonic function using only the terminology of the jazz/pop world. It seems that we need that classical "iv" symbol to talk about these things in a general way.

Thanks for some more good examples - it really is a common device.