Talk:Academy Award for Best Original Song

Performances at Ceremony
I removed a note about Robin Williams' performance at the ceremony (which said that it was uncommon), because it is not that uncommon for someone other than the singer in the soundtrack to perform at the ceremony. For example, on the soundtrack of Chicago, "I Go On" is sung by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger. At the ceremony, Zellweger's part was performed by Queen Latifah, possibly because of her superior experience in live musical performance. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:43, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Still, that's only twice out of some seventy years of Awards. Also, Robin Williams was not in any way involved in the film, which marked the performance as even more unusual. At least Latifah had a major role in Chicago. - JnB987 18:33, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, that's just what I came up with off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure there are others though... Is there somewhere where we can find a list of the performers of songs at the Oscars?  imdb.com doesn't have it. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 23:12, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Go to "Soundtracks" and you'll find who performed what. Also the official Oscar site mentions it. Sometimes the choices are odd for example "Against All Odds" and "Footloose" were performed by Ann Reinking and Debbie Allen. In the case #REDIRECT [Against All Odds (song)] the writers were unfamiliar with [Phil Collins] but I don't know about Debbie Allen and #REDIRECT unsigned comment added by KL FAN (talk • contribs) 13:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Object of award
Do we really have to point out that it is the songwriters who get the award? Obviously all the awards are accepted by humans rather than the 'songs' or 'films' themselves. What is the point of this disambiguation? To my mind there IS such a thing as an Oscar-winning song. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.203.2.61 (talk) 16:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You left out the people who are the point of that disambig--the artists who record the songs, which the public often associates with the song, as opposed to the songwriters who are actually being honored by the Academy. Yes, "song" does properly mean the composition; but enough people confuse the Grammy Awards for Record of the Year (for the recording, goes to artist, producer, etc.) and Song of the Year (for the song, goes to songwriters--just like this one) that those articles require similar disambig language.  --RBBrittain (talk) 14:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with your point about distinguishing that its the songwriter who gets the Oscar, as opposed to the artist. But I am troubled by the parenthetical sentence in the article saying "there is no such thing as an 'Oscar-winning song."  The article for Academy Award for Best Picture makes the point that it's only the producers (as opposed to director and actors) who get the official credit for the Best Picture Oscar.  But I think you'd get plenty of argument if you claimed there that it somehow follows from this that "there is no such thing as an Oscar-winning film."


 * I don't think too many people would claim that there is no such thing as Nobel Prize-winning research, just because the medal is hung around the neck of the researcher, rather than being wrapped around the papers.


 * The phrasing that was there before that particular "it's not the song that wins"/"there is no such thing as" change was made was better. I'm going to restore it.  Mwelch (talk) 01:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Wrong years
Hello. In this article, years are wrong. In Annie Lennox there is written she won in 2004, and not in 2003. The winner in 2003 was "Lose Yourself". See it.wiki --Square87 21:52, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It's a naming issue. While Eminem won the award in 2003, the Oscar's are presented for film achievements during the previous calendar year.  It is correct in this sense to say that "In 2003, Eminem won the 2002 Oscar for Best Song," but the usage is fuzzy.  You'll find this issue with pretty much all of the Oscar material on the wiki.  --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 22:14, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Though for most awards Wikipedia uses the year the ceremony was held (the standard IMDb uses), Oscar historical articles in Wikipedia and most other media traditionally use the eligibility year (usually the year the film was released, sometimes the year after), which is what the Academy officially uses. The 80th Academy Awards were for 2007 films, though the ceremony was held in 2008; thus that is known as the "2007" Oscars.  The Grammy Awards have a similar issue; but while Grammy articles now follow the IMDb standard, the Oscars' deeper history takes precedence here.
 * Though this award was introduced after the "split years" period, notice that the Best Picture article lists both years for each award period, as the Academy does. This period creates problems for the IMDb standard as there were two separate Oscar ceremonies held in 1930 (for 1928-29 and 1929-30); following the Academy standard avoids this problem.  --RBBrittain (talk) 14:56, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Expansion needed
This article needs expanding, to include all successful songwriters and their collaborators. For example, Jimmy van Heusen is listed, but not Johnny Burke. As this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, this article ought to list year-by-year all nominated songs, the writers, the performers, the film, possibly the director too, not just the title of the winning song.

Guy 19:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The article needs a list like this one. There is a need for separate articles, one list by winning composers alphabetically, similar for lyricists, and listings for all nominees.

New songs in old musicals
Problems with this:
 * As a result, most recent film adaptations of stage musicals have included original songs in order to be nominated, such as "You Must Love Me" in the 1996 film Evita, and "Listen", "Love You I Do" and "Patience" in the 2006 film Dreamgirls.

jnestorius(talk) 16:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) sources? I guess there are few such adaptations these days; but are the producers of most of them of them Oscar-focused? Seems ambitious.
 * 2) How "recent"? Little Shop of Horrors was 1986; "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was 1978; "The Continental" was 1934!
 * I wrote that sentence. If you check "The Continental"'s film The Gay Divorcee, most of the Cole Porter songs from the original musical Gay Divorce were gutted and replaced with new songs; so "The Continental" can't be said to have been added just for Oscar eligibility.  In addition, Grease had at least four new songs, at a time when no film had ever produced more than one nominee in this category (the first was Fame in 1980); none of them were by the original composers.
 * Little Shop of Horrors is recent enough to be included in my sentence. Like Evita and Dreamgirls, each film added at least one new Oscar-nominated song by the original composers (albeit only one of them for Dreamgirls; Tom Eyen died 15 years earlier) while retaining a large number of original songs.  However, the original musical version of Little Shop of Horrors isn't as well-known as Evita or Dreamgirls, nor is the film version as recent; thus the latter two are better examples, especially since "You Must Love Me" won and the new Dreamgirls songs flamed out spectacularly.  --RBBrittain (talk) 19:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * After re-reading, I'm changing "most" to "many". Your first question does have a bit of a point to it.  --RBBrittain (talk) 19:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "Many" does work better now. As for the reason for adding a new song to adaptations, I think it is indeed added with hopes of getting a nomination, since all other songs are ineligible.  And if they don't fit in the storyline, they'll have it appear over the end credits.  It would be great to find a quote or something from one of those songwriters though.  --Mtjaws (talk) 02:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The rule that only new songs qualified for the award started after the 1942 Oscar ceremony. Jerome Kern was furious that he won for "The Last Time I Saw Paris," a song that wasn't written for a film.  He thought the award should have gone to the runner-up, "Blues in the Night."  He led an effort to make a rule that only songs written especially for the film would be in the future eligible for the award.  That rule passed.Bellczar (talk) 08:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

?
Why?! 89.222.152.170 (talk) 16:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Your use of «» instead of the standard "" quotation marks is why this keeps getting reverted. Song titles should always use the normal "" style marks.  Read this Help page for a better explanation.  Thanks.  --Mtjaws (talk) 16:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * «""» — this isn't «normal»; this is bullshit. 89.222.152.170 (talk) 14:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The change from "" to «» has been done anonymously, which is one reason why it is reverted. "" is the usual punctuation in written English (both UK and American), which is why that is the standard on Wikipedia. «» is used in other languages, but even in these the pressure is on to adopt "". There are an awful lot of Wikipedia articles to change if «» is to become the standard.    Guy (talk) 15:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * — и хули надо было пиздеть? 89.222.152.170 (talk) 15:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

2008 rule change (2 songs/title)
today AMPAS announced a change for the 81st academy awards; in their press release they say:


 * Three items of note were altered in the Original Song rules. First, while there continues to be no limit on the number of songs from a given film that can be submitted for consideration, no more than two songs from any one film may be nominated for an Academy Award.

jhawkinson (talk) 18:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC) ✅

Posthumous winners
No problem with having this in the article. However, wouldn't it be better served by having another paragraph headed "Posthumous winners", rather like the section on Female winners? Also, while I am at it, a split in the list of more-than-one winners and more-than-one nominees (into two lists). Speaking of which, as the article is starting to become a little obese, is it not time to split out the lists of nominees into another article "Academy Award for Best Original Song (nominees)"? I also think the format was better when it was a table - the only snag was that my Wikitable skills do not extend to joining two boxes when the nominee(s) had joint responsibility for tune and lyrics. Comments, please :-)   Guy (talk) 15:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

African American winners
The press makes a big deal about the African American winners of the four acting categories. Would a section for African American winners be an approriate additiosn to the bottom of this article? -ErinHowarth (talk) 01:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You_Light_Up_My_Life_(song) rather than the movie
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to link to the song You_Light_Up_My_Life_(song) rather than the movie, in 1977? 99.255.208.80 (talk) 16:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The first 1977 link does correctly go to the song's page, and the second link goes to the film's page. Both the song and movie links are included for every year, but these just happen to have the same title.  The links are different though.  Therefore, nothing needs to be changed regarding this one.  --Mtjaws (talk) 01:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Wet Blanket Policy
Okay now, I was trying to figure out where this would go, but the trivia regarding this is quite intresting in the fact that it is the only short film to be nominated in this field, and I believe the only animated short to be nominated in a non short cat. So can someone tell me where would this trivia go on the best song page? Thanks.

174.50.65.177 (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Strong bias in article towards "more recent (post 1980) song
Even though the more well known songs such as "Somewhere over a rainbow" and "White Christmas" are from earlier times. Wallie (talk) 10:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Missing Song in 1944
In 1944 "Sweet Dreams Sweetheart" from Hollywood Canteen – music by Maurice K. Jerome and lyric by Ted Koehler is missing. See Oscar-article. --87.122.117.211 (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Academy Awards which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:17, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Question
Should we list songwriters who go by stage names by their stage names or what the nominations list them as? I'm specifically referring to Adele, who's listed as Adele Adkins for her nomination in Skyfall & Common and John Legend, listed as Lonnie Lynn and John Stephens on their nomination on Glory. Meanwhile, Eminem was listed by that name for his nomination. Bono and the Edge were listed by those names for their first nomination and their real names (Paul Hewson and Dave Evans) on their second one. What's the proper procedure? Crboyer (talk) 01:34, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Sources: http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2003, http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2013, http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2014, and http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2015. Crboyer (talk) 01:34, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

List vs. Table?
Why are the songs in a list prior to 1950 and a table afterwards?Naraht (talk) 13:20, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Wrong years 2
Should years be shifted up (+1) because if someone checks for example https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1984 he/she won't find Stevie Wonder's song that has year 1984 next to it in Wiki article (he/she will find it on https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1985)?--Obsuser (talk) 01:34, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

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List of winners and nominees modifications
User:208.117.127.135 has reverted multiple edits that are inconsistent with citations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as they name nominated films, songs and individuals. User:2600:1700:acc0:b6b0:611f:dc76:b31d:9a0a has helped to correct things like "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" to its correct title. It seems like it would be easiest to keep listings here consistent with those officially provided by AMPAS, but please feel free to share any other recommendations. Rburton66 (talk) 05:45, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

I feel that the Oscar nominees should be alphabetized, and that they should addressed by the names the are commonly known for. Like Shellback or Juicy J. And if they wrote as a team, then they should be addressed by their team name. Like U2 or Pasek & Paul. As for "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" I think it'll make things easier if the songs like this didn't include the "Theme of" part. Except for the Shaft theme because has no other title.

Also, if there is a movie or person with more nominations in the same year, they shouldn't be repeated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.117.127.135 (talk) 22:37, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, 208.117.127.135. Can you provide any citations to support the titling preferences? Please consider this AMPAS nomination certificate for the 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty song, for instance, to see how that song title was officially listed by the Academy: http://natedsanders.com/ItemImages/000009/39381_med.jpeg Rburton66 (talk) 00:21, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

208.117.127.135 has again made further reversions without discussing. To prevent further edit warring, I'm seeking a request for a third opinion. Rburton66 (talk) 04:54, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

I was just eliminating the repetition of nominees and movies, for example, Beauty and the Beast has three nominations and doesn't need to be highlighted in all it's sections.

Also, it's ridiculous to have one person have a (music and lyrics) note, while others have just (music) or (lyrics). Just keep it simple and have the nominations look like this: "Paul McCartney (music); Linda McCartney & Paul McCartney (lyrics)

As well as this: "Phil Collins (music and lyrics)

So the page won't be so discombobulated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.117.127.135 (talk) 13:30, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

That seems reasonable, 208.117.127.135. Thank you! Rburton66 (talk) 20:17, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Pasek and Paul should be nominated as a team. They wrote the songs together, therefore they should be under their team name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.169.144.70 (talk) 00:42, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Further list of winners and nominees modifications
has made a number of changes here that change names and titles away from that used by AMPAS. Do we have consesnsus that names and titles should reflect those in the nomination (which makes sense to me), or should we be moving these to the common name as reflected in the subject's article titles? --Ahecht (TALK PAGE ) 18:19, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Pasek and Paul
Pasek & Paul's nominations need to be under their team name cause they wrote songs as a team. Also because they are more well-known as Pasek & Paul. Now if either one did songs without the other, then their full name can be spelled out.

Even if it's different from the Oscar site, they really need to be under their team name, because their wikipedia page addresses them as a team. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.169.144.70 (talk) 23:04, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Just let them be called by their team name! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.38.232.71 (talk) 14:25, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi, here's a reply. I entirely disagree for the following reasons:

a.) The official nominations use their full names. b.) There is no precedent for this in these articles. Plenty of musical theater collaborations have been called by team names and at no point have they been officially nominated under that team name. Kander and Ebb aren't listed as being nominated for Funny Lady under their team name, and nor should they be. Wikipedia, by the way, listing them as Pasek and Paul has no bearing on how they should be categorized in these articles. The Wiki articles devoted to their collaborations calls them Rodgers and Hammerstein and Kander and Ebb, and their full names are still used in nomination articles.

Unless you're able to get consensus on this issue in favor of your preference -- which at this point you don't -- your edits will keep being reverted. Hope this helps! NathanielTheBold (talk)