A-List: Top Five Oscar Songs
By J. Don Birnam
March 17, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The rules for today are simple: I’m only going to consider songs that have won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, with the caveat that I’m going to exclude any song associated with a Disney movie from consideration. Otherwise, the list would write itself, and classics from Under the Sea to A Whole New World would of course emerge victorious.
In selecting these songs, I’m trying to weigh both the quality of the song, its enduring value in the annals of pop culture, and also how much, if any, it advanced or played into the plot of the movie. Today, to be considered for the category, the song cannot simply be played in the closing credits, but must have another role (although I don’t think it’s very defined, and James Bond songs get in with the opening, not rolling end credits).
It turns out that the 1980s and early 1990s were perhaps the heyday for songs made for movies. In some years, several of the nominees could make the list. Indeed, five classic songs that lost the award deserve mention: Philadelphia, by Neil Young, which lost to The Streets of Philadelphia, by Bruce Springsteen. It’s pretty amazing that a straight-up drama had not one but two songs written for it and nominated. We also have I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, from Armageddon as performed by Aerosmith;Maniac, from Flashdance (which also lost to another song from that movie, the amazing What a Feeling; The Power of Love, from Back to the Future; and Let’s Hear it for the Boy, from Footlose, loser to the classic song I Just Called to Say I Love You .
As for the eligible honorable mentions, I have to start with Eminem’s Lose Yourself from 8 Mile. Winner in 2002, it is perhaps the last of winners destined to become classics (although, I suspect Let It Go from Frozen will join that list), and signaled one of the first times the Academy went away from the typical love theme or the catchy pop song into the 21st Century of music. Kudos also have to go out to Carly Simon’s Let the River Run, from Working Girl, which won in a year with only three nominees but nevertheless cemented the movie from the opening credits. The Way We Were, from the eponymous movie, is also an honorable mention, mostly because the song has become so well-liked and is so emblematic of the deeply emotional movie. In seventh place is probably Whatever Will Be, Will Be, from Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. That song plays a key role in the climatic moments of the movie, and builds and adds to the suspense with its eerie repetitiveness and melancholy. Few movies use a song in that effective a way.
And in sixth place, I have to say (and you probably saw it coming), is James Horner’s My Heart Will Go On, from Titanic. Many factors contributed to the stunning, unparalleled cultural phenomenon that was James Cameron’s epic, and it is undoubtedly the song, as performed by Celine Dion, that was one of those elements. The drama, the tragedy of the movie are captured perfectly in the song, which became the highest-selling single from a movie soundtrack.
But here are five that are arguably even better.
5. Take My Breath Away (Top Gun)
Who does not remember Tom Cruise at his finest, getting the girl, as the maverick eh…Maverick? The song is catchy with its synthetic ‘80s sound and is used perfectly in the middle of the movie to narrate the love between Maverick and Charlie. The song is now iconic in its own right, but the movie it headlined is as well, and thanks in many ways to the amazing performance by the band Berlin.
4. White Christmas (Holiday Inn)
Speaking of Berlin, how about Berlin as in Irving? I confess I have not seen this movie, but among the list of songs that have won the Academy Awards there is no doubt that White Christmas is perhaps the most timeless and undoubtedly the most beautiful. What other song can claim the distinction of being played endlessly at least for a few weeks every year? The song’s very title has come to symbolize a nostalgic time, a romanticized notion of our favorite holiday. It is hard to believe or even understand that such an iconic melody was composed originally for a motion picture, but that was the nature of the business in 1942 when the song won. It wasn’t Berlin’s first Oscar nomination either, as he had received nods a handful of times before. But, it was this win that would cement him and the song as an all-time American master.
3. Over the Rainbow (The Wizard of Oz)
In case you did not know, The Wizard of Oz was produced by MGM, not by Disney, so the movie qualifies under today’s rules. The movie was one of the highest grossing of its time and is the only Best Picture nominee in today’s list. The song itself is used masterfully in the movie, again symbolizing nostalgia, longing, and distance. It has become synonymous with dreams, aspirations, and far away, even futile desires. Of course, it is the beautiful delivery of Judy Garland as Dorothy that is in large part responsible for the song’s iconic stature. Before Jasmine dreamed of A Whole New Word, Dorothy wondered what lay Over the Rainbow, in one of the all-time classics from an all-time classic movie that still plays well to audiences young and old.
2. Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
Very much like Judy Garland did it in her movie, Audrey Hepburn did it in hers. Her performance of the classic song by Henri Mancini is so central to the plot and the overall feeling of Breakfast At Tiffany’s that it’s hard to imagine the movie existing at all without it. Of the ones on the list, this one is perhaps my own personal favorite in many ways. It’s incredible to consider that it was composed by Henry Mancini, who also composed the Pink Panther theme, and written by Johnny Mercer. Indeed, for Mercer it was his third victory in this category, and he followed with an unprecedented back-to-back the following year for the beautiful Days of Wine and Roses. But you really have to give it to the melancholic choruses of Moon River, the heartbreaking, dream-making quality of the song, as one of the best songs ever written - for a movie or otherwise.
1. Up Where We Belong (An Officer and a Gentleman)
But I have to go perhaps a bit more unconventional for the song written by Will Jennings and used in the Debra Winger/Richard Gere love story for the win. Up Where We Belong has the iconic stature of all the other songs on the list, the movie itself is as classic as the others on the list, and the song itself is as good. But it is one category that the song edges out the others in a significant way: use of the song in the movie. Spoiler alert: in the end scene, when Gere shows up in his naval costume and takes Debra literally up into his arms and carries her out of the factory, as the workers cheer and cry, the song blares up. It is really a goose bump moment, and the lyrics of the song go perfectly with the actions that are developing.
More still: Up Where We Belong defeated two other classic songs, Eye of the Tiger from Rocky III and It Might be You, the beautiful song in Tootsie. Thus, in terms of degree of difficulty, the win also helps it edge out its competitors.
Whether songs like Skyfall or Glory, recent Oscar winners, ever attain the stature of these songs, remains to be seen. It is too bad, overall, that songs are rarely if ever tied to movies these days. But, as we can see from the list above, it was well worth it when they were.