"Rainbow Connection" Didn't Win, and Other Shameful Mistakes in the History of the Oscar for Best Original Song (Part 1)

Songs are integral to movies. Maybe not so much anymore, since we don’t really have theme songs that refer to the movie by name, or musicals written directly for the screen, but some of our most beloved and popular songs were written for and first appeared in movies, even if the movie itself has been completely forgotten. (E.g. You know “Lullaby of Broadway,” but probably can’t get in an Anchorman-style quote-for-quote battle with Gold Diggers of 1935.) And then there are some amazing, well-known, iconic in the Western canon pieces of music that did not win the Oscar for Best Song. Here are some notable snubs.

1953: “That’s Amore,” Dean Martin’s second-most signature song, after “Everybody Loves Somebody,” and his signature song until “Everybody Loves Somebody” came out a decade later, was his big number from the generic Martin and Lewis golf trifle The Caddy. It lost the Oscar to “Secret Love” from the musical Calamity Jane. You know, your favorite song, “Secret Love,” from Calamity Jane.


1967: At least Oscar winner “Talk to the Animals” from Doctor Dolittle didn’t fade into oblivion, and its a pretty well-known movie musical song. But it’s not nearly the pop classic or mood-maker the way “The Look of Love” is, which is also, true fact, the most ’60s song of the ’60s, from Casino Royale, the most ’60s movie of the ’60s. This song gets your mom hot.

1972: Michael Jackson’s first solo single of any import was “Ben,” a love song the sad, lonely teenager wrote about a pet rat, which was then used in the horror movie Willard. It was a #1 hit and showed the world that Michael Jackson was pretty much going to be the biggest thing ever, even if he chose to sing songs about vermin. It lost the Oscar to “The Morning After,” the cheesy epic theme song from the cheesy disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure.


1973: In a head-to-head battle of the world’s most famous singers, Barbra Streiand and the schlocky “The Way We Were” from the movie of the same name beats out Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” from the Bond movie of the same name, notable for being the only time Paul McCartney ever rocked the fuck out.


1976: Movie songs and their semiotic usage became so universally ingrained at some point that filmmakers can only use them ironically, as a parody or as an homage. Like if a movie has somebody training for something, you’ll probablty hear Bill Conti’s awesome, fanfare-laden “Gonna Fly Now” from Rocky, the greatest sports movie ever made. The song that won the Oscar: “Evergreen,” another Barbra Streiand song from A Star is Born, which I’m certain is the same song and movie as “The Way We Were” and The Way We Were, respectively.


1977: For a number of years after Debby Boone (no relation) recorded “You Light Up My Life” from the rags-to-riches, singer-gets-famous movie also named that, it was the most succesful pop song of all time, in that it spent 10 weeks at #1. Yeah, it’s popular and stuff, but it is a love song about Jesus (in the movie it’s just the kind of formulaic pap a cigar-chomping record executive says “now that right there is a hit record”), and it won the Oscar over yet another James Bond movie song. The songs are a carefully chosen, very important part of each Bond movie, and for The Spy Who Loved Me, producers hired composer Marvin Hamlisch to write “Nobody Does it Better” and Carly Simon to sing it, both at the top of their careers. According to Radiohead, who covers it live, it’s “the sexiest song ever written,” and according to me, the only time I’ll ever discuss Marvin Hamlisch on this website.


1979: “It Goes Like It Goes,” a song you don’t remember from Norma Rae, a dull movie about union labor that you never saw, beat out Paul Williams’ “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie, which is unspeakably beautiful, endlessly inspiring, and a classic, frequently-covered perfect composition in the same class as anything written by Cole Porter, Carole King, or a Gershwin. Fuck you, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I have a hunch there’s gonna be a performance of this by Jason Segel and the rebooted Muppets this Sunday. I just have a feeling. And it will be fantastic.


’80s and ’90s snubs on Friday. You’ll probably have stopped crying from “Rainbow Connection” by then.