The soundtrack was the fourth of the series to be composed by John Barry. He tried to incorporate the “elegance of the Oriental sound” with Japanese music-inspired tracks. The theme song, “You Only Live Twice”, was composed by Barry and lyricist Leslie Bricusse and sung by Nancy Sinatra after her father Frank Sinatra passed on the opportunity. Nancy Sinatra was reported to be very nervous while recording — first she wanted to leave the studio; then she claimed to sometimes “sound like Minnie Mouse”. Barry declared that the final song uses 25 different takes. British singer Julie Rogers recorded an alternative song for the titles, but this was not used.

There are two versions of the song “You Only Live Twice”, sung by Nancy Sinatra, one directly from the movie soundtrack, and a second one for record release arranged by Billy Strange.[citation needed] The movie soundtrack song is widely recognised for its striking opening bars and oriental flavour, and was far more popular on radio. The record release made No. 44 on the Billboard charts in the USA, No. 11 in UK. Both versions of the title song are available on CD.

In 1992, Acen sampled the title song “You Only Live Twice” for his song “Trip II the Moon Part 2”. In 1997, Icelandic singer Björk recorded a cover version. In 1998, Robbie Williams used the distinctive string figure for his song “Millennium”, (although it was re-recorded, rather than sampled from the movie for cost reasons). Coldplay covered it when they toured in 2001, and it was covered by Natacha Atlas for her 2005 compilation album The Best of Natacha Atlas. Shirley Bassey, who has three original Bond themes to her credit, has also covered the song.

A different title song was originally recorded by Julie Rogers, but eventually discarded. Only two lines from that version were kept in the final lyrics, and the orchestral part was changed to fit Nancy Sinatra’s vocal range. Rogers’ version only appeared in a James Bond 30th Anniversary CD, with no singer credit. In the 1990s, an alternative example of a possible theme song (also called “You Only Live Twice” and sung by Lorraine Chandler) was discovered in the vaults of RCA Records. It became a very popular track with followers of the Northern soul scene (Chandler was well known for her high-quality soul output on RCA) and can be found on several RCA soul compilations.