"The Power of Love" Lost and Other Shameful Mistakes in the History of the Oscar for Best Original Song (Part 2)

Click here for part 1, in which I looked at the most egregious, short-sided snubs in the seven-decade history of the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

1980: Look, I love it when teenagers spontaneously kinda selfishly hold up traffic to have a dance number in the street set to a song about how awesome all of them are/are going to be, but “Fame” from Fame should not have beat out “On the Road Again” and “Nine to Five,” classic country songs (and signature songs for Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton, respectively) and the perfect representations of the inexplicable late ’70s/early ’80s urban cowboy country crossover fad, which was built largely on the backs of movies like Urban Cowboy and Honeysuckle Rose (the source of “On the Road Again”)


1982: Maybe not a snub so much as the result of an unfortunate coin toss by the part of the uncaring universe that determines entertainment industry awards, but “Up Where We Belong” from An Officer and a Gentleman beat “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky III. The song most associated with a story-ending romantic gesture (Richard Gere goes into a factory and kidnaps Debra Winger, and she retaliates by stealing his hat) must have just edged out the go-to training-montage song.


1985: “Say You, Say Me” by Lionel “Don “No Soul” Simmons” Richie over “The Power of Love”? What the fuuuuuuuck? Marty McFly skateboards to it in Back to the Future, and then plays it as his audition song in front of the board of geeky teachers, one of whom is this song’s creator, Sir Huey Lewis. This is the song that inspired Marty McFly to go back in time, make out with his mother, and introduce Chuck Berry(’s cousin) to his invention, rock and roll music. This song makes an already great movie even better, which is what a great movie song is supposed to do. (Full disclosure: Back to the Future is my favorite movie and I will fight you.)


1997: Alright, so it’s fair and expected that “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic would beat anything put up against it, but I needed a reason to post this bizarre clip from that year’s Oscars, in which the nominees, performed in rapid succession. It’s just very surreal to hear Celine Dion that close to a wacked out, characteristically depressed Elliott Smith, Elliott Smith, gets up there and hauntingly and subtlely, as if he had another switch, delivers the lovely “Miss Misery” from Good Will Hunting, directed by fellow Portlander Gus Van Sant, also getting some surreal Oscar love in front of a billion home viewers. #portlandrepresent


1999: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut brought back the classic movie musical in themes, structure, and nuanced, knowing Broadway-style songwriting. Seriously—Trey Parker majored in musical theater in college, and we studied this movie as the perfect musical in my college musical theater class. It’s fantastic that the music branch of the Academy wanted to recognize this movie’s unlikely achievements and nominated “Blame Canada” for Best Original Song, maybe because it’s so catchy, maybe because it expresses the movie’s plot and motivations, or maybe because it’s the only song out of that movie that isn’t about handjobs or uncle-fucking. This is a case in which it’s an honor to be nominated, realistically-speaking, but it has to suck to lose to a tool like Phil Collins in the twilight of his career cranking out a dumb, ending credits, cynically composed love song for a Disney movie (Tarzan). Parker made a whole episode of South Park dedicated to mocking Collins; at least “Blame Canada” was performed on the Oscars telecast in an unlikely showstopper. Also nominated that year: the devestating “When She Loved Me,” from Toy Story 2, something of a preview of the feature-length meditation on letting go of innocence and childhood that would be Toy Story 3, and the damn-near perfect Amy Mann song “Save Me,” one of many she wrote for Magnolia.