Chris Martin’s lost James Bond theme goes on auction with unheard Coldplay tapes

Acoustic recording of a song titled The World Is Not Enough included in wide-ranging auction featuring formative Coldplay recordings

A lost demo recording of a song Coldplay’s Chris Martin reportedly intended for 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough is going up for auction, alongside other recordings from the band’s earliest years.

For the auction by Wax Poetics , the British producer Chris Allison is making available an archive of recordings the band made prior to their Allison-produced second EP The Blue Room, released in October 1999.

The World Is Not Enough is being sold as a single recording on a cassette tape, sung by Martin with an acoustic guitar backing. It has never been released, and it’s not known if it was even submitted for the Pierce Brosnan-starring film, whose theme song (also titled The World Is Not Enough) was recorded by Garbage.

Coldplay are on the record as James Bond fans. Responding to a question from a fan on their website, they said of the song Spies from 2000 debut album Parachutes: “The band very much had [Bond composer] John Barry (composer of the best theme songs in film & tv ever!) in mind and there was a Bond film in the pipeline,” the latter referring to The World Is Not Enough.

Elsewhere in the auction are original master tapes recorded for The Blue Room, which was the band’s first release for their label Parlophone, who they signed to in April 1999 while studying at University College London (their self-released debut EP Safety had come out in 1998).

The tapes, described in the auction listing as “one of the most significant and direct surviving documents of Coldplay’s formative years”, feature unheard alternate versions of three tracks that ended up on Parachutes – Spies, We Never Change and and Shiver – as well as an unheard version of Blue Room track Bigger Stronger.

Other lots stretch even further back: a cassette simply marked Coldplay Tracks contains recordings of nine songs, including rehearsals of Shiver and We Never Change as well as the previously unheard and intriguingly titled Ode to Deodorant.

A cassette titled Coldplay: 5 Tracks features other developmental recordings from their early catalogue, and another features live recordings from an early gig in Chester. Allison is also selling rare promo versions of The Blue Room on CD and vinyl.

There is material beyond Coldplay, too. Allison produced another Parlophone-signed act, the Beta Band: going up for auction are tapes and other formats documenting the recording of the early EPs The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos as well as their self-titled debut album, and frontman Steve Mason’s solo project King Biscuit Time.

There is a wealth of material from the early years of another Allison-produced band, the Wedding Present, including archival recordings for their 1987 debut album George Best, 1988 EP Ukrainian John Peel Sessions, and 1989 second album Bizarro.

Allison is donating a portion of the proceeds from the auction to the music education initiative Restore the Music.