(Before today's post, a very serious matter. Some months ago, I blogged about a Timi Yuro song, inspired by a fellow music critic who was posting to a message board under the pseudonym "If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up." An undeniably great username.And a name that's now gone silent. The man behind it, Rickey Wright, suffered a stroke this week and passed away yesterday at the too-young age of 45. I'm sure no one reading this blog knows him, but there are celebrations of a life passionately lived here and here and here ... and surely other places on the Web. It is consolation to me (a) that he didn't suffer long; (b) that he lived life as he wanted to and received love in return; and (c) selfishly speaking, that my one face-to-face interaction with him resulted in a blog post that made me say "Whee!" twice. Rest well, Rickey, as the music you loved so well carries you home.)
Mm-hmm. Now, on to today's weekend anticipation: the Oscars. I'm largely indifferent to film - a major blind spot on my pop-culture radar; the medium rarely speaks to me in the way music does. So herein I offer 10 of my favorite Oscar winners for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture. With the disclaimer that I'd have an even better set if I chose among the Oscar losers instead.
1. B.J. Thomas, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (1969) (writers: Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
2. The Carpenters, "For All We Know" (1970) (writers: Fred Karlin/Robb Royer/Jimmy Griffin)
3. Isaac Hayes, "Theme From Shaft" (1971) (Ed. note: I wish I could have found his memorable Academy Awards performance. But I found him winning his Oscar!)
4. Keith Carradine, "I'm Easy" (1975)
5. Barbra Streisand, "Evergreen (Love Theme From A Star Is Born)" (1976) (writers: Streisand/Paul Williams)
6. Christopher Cross, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (writers: Cross/Burt Bacharach/Carole Bayer Sager/Peter Allen)
7. Berlin, "Take My Breath Away" (1986) (writers: Giorgio Moroder/Tom Whitlock)
8. Carly Simon, "Let the River Run" (1988)
9. Bruce Springsteen, "Streets of Philadelphia" (1993)
10. Bob Dylan, "Things Have Changed" (2000)
3 comments:
What I find interesting is that Mrs. Robinson by S&G was never nominated. Even though it had been written beforehand as Mrs. Roosevelt it wasn't recorded or produced until they changed it up and made it for the graduate.
I'm also amazed at how animated musicals dominated this category in the 90s. Totally forgot that.
And note what era I skipped over completely in this set. :)
An even more astounding list than the losers is the never-even-nominated list, which includes the BeeGees SNF songs (!), "Goldfinger" (!!) and Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again" (which is infinitely better than her "Let the River Run", IMHO).
Worth noting, tho', that the Best Song category has strict rules; you must be able to prove that the song was written specifically for the film. Which is why "Mrs Robinson" was thrown out, and "The Rose", from the Bette Midler film, was considered a front-runner in '79, but it was disqualified because the songwriter went on The Tonight Show and told Carson that it was a song she'd had sitting in her unpublished songs drawer for years. She thought she was telling an interesting anecdote; but it cost her an Oscar.
Post a Comment