By Littlebells
As the 2011 Academy Awards approach, LIH is bringing you all the songs that have won for Best Original Song accompanied with their contenders. Please let us know what you think!
1941
“The Last Time I Saw Paris”—Lady Be Good
- “Baby Mine” — Dumbo
- “Be Honest With Me” — Ridin’ on a Rainbow Fred Rose
- “Blues in the Night” — Blues in the Night
- “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” — Buck Privates
- “Chattanooga Choo Choo” — Sun Valley Serenade
- “Dolores” — Las Vegas Nights
- “Out of the Silence” — All-American Co-Ed
- “Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye” — You’ll Never Get Rich
1951
“In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” —Here Comes the Groom
- “Never”— Golden Girl
- “Wonder Why” — Rich, Young and Pretty
- “Too Late Now” — Royal Wedding
- “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” — The Strip
1961
“Moon River”—Breakfast at Tiffany’s
- “Bachelor in Paradise” — Bachelor in Paradise
- “Love Theme From El Cid (The Falcon and The Dove)” — El Cid
- “Pocketful of Miracles” — Pocketful of Miracles
- “Town Without Pity” — Town Without Pity
1971
“Theme from Shaft”—Shaft
(lyrics start at 3:11)
- “The Age of Not Believing” — Bedknobs and Broomsticks
- “Bless the Beasts and Children” — Bless the Beasts and Children
- “Life Is What You Make It” — Kotch
- “All His Children” — Sometimes a Great Notion
1981
“Arthur’s Theme (Best You Can Do)”—Arthur
- “Endless Love” — Endless Love
- “For Your Eyes Only” — For Your Eyes Only
- “The First Time It Happens” — The Great Muppet Caper
- “One More Hour” — Ragtime
1991
“Beauty and the Beast”—Beauty and the Beast
- “Be Our Guest” — Beauty and the Beast
- “Belle” — Beauty and the Beast
- “When You’re Alone” — Hook
- “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” — Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
2001
“If I didn’t have you”—Monsters, Inc.
- “Until…” — Kate & Leopold
- “May It Be” — The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- “There You’ll Be” — Pearl Harbor
- “Vanilla Sky” — Vanilla Sky
For the 2011 Oscars, two songs have been nominated. Yes, only TWO.
Which one do you think will take the Oscar Home?
“Man or Muppet” — The Muppet Movie
“Real in Rio” —Rio
comicreleaf
comicrelief2
Comic Relief
parisienne
littlebells
Lurker
ozzie20
Open Book
LIH
linkedinhollywood.com 
“Am I a maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan or am I a muppet (am i a muppet?)?” Well ya’ll know what I’m rooting for. 🙂
Hmm! Let me guess?????? Rio? LOL!!
This is such a great collection LB. I love going through history and listening to these wonderful songs u have put together.
Oh I’m so glad! I’m going to try and find some of the songs that didn’t get the Oscar. 🙂
Not intending to argue with the article, but to be exact, what you did was document all the best original film based soundtrack track songs from the first numbered year of all of the preceding decades. “Pant, ” “Pant, ” “Pant, ” now that that the academic interlude is over, let’s talk about the historical material. Obviously, (massive eye roll) you know exactly what you did, but that’s exactly what leaves me with my jaw on the floor. Why is making this distinction clear, because you’ve opened this topic for me in a way I might not have ventured into otherwise. See below.
What excellent research!!!!!!! Unfortunately this is one of the award categories I rarely stay around for. Sadly my attention span rarely extends beyond best supporting, lead actor and best picture winners. I’m sorry it’s embarrassing, like many, I have a very complicated life and in an attempt to keep things from becoming more disorganized I frequently reject greater complication. Attempting to excuse laziness, honestly that neither explains nor excuses my disinterest it only highlights a huge intellectual challenge.
What’s really hard to judge about the design, music, writing, cinematography, and other similar artistic categories is it is really hard to evaluate them without a connoisseurship and breadth of knowledge wide enough to recall changes (if any) in that year’s taste. That LB is what you so graciously provided me; ……………………now I can get my freak on. I’ll try to surface occasionally to make sure things don’t get too weird and stay socially acceptable. Please bear with me.
Regarding the ‘40’s, much like the ‘50’s I find it really hard to isolate individual art forms when judging an overall film artifact and the philosophies of it’s time. Returning to my previous laziness excuse, it’s easier to look at bits and pieces of the autonomous ingredients and come to an overall assessment.
That deconstructive approach may risk honesty about the fully composed work but what can you do? This is one of those how can you “eat an elephant” questions. The answer will probably require you to “eat one bite at a time” yet what’s at stake? Again the abstraction necessary obviously risks a reasoned holistic review of the said work. I don’t think it would be untrue to say, in a design since, that a design trend of the time probably promoted more of an essentialist evaluation or what was at the core of this work. I know, “gross” we’re in the twenty-first century why would any one waste their time by being so presumptuous. When I think of only a few diverse movies that many thought were impressed with from that time period “To Kill a Mocking bird”, “The Wizard of OZ”, or “West-Side Story” that approach would entirely be inadequate.
LB,
Any positive evaluation of Rosemary Clooney, forces you to remember that her nephew
George really is a 2nd generation benefitiary of Hollywood or entertainment nepotism. Should that keep him from getting an award this year? It is hard to tell. Here’s one of her more popular songs from the same period.
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was such a fine work of song craft, you just keep breaking off pieces of this work and it just doesn’t stop telling you about the time period. Here’s Frank’s Sinatra’s edgier (by today and yesterday’s standards) rendition of the same song.
I love “Moon River” whether it’s sung or orchestration. Thanks for providing this clip!
Oh and I love “Mambo Italiano”. I need to look up the lyrics though because I just start singing “watermelonwatermelonwatermelon”.
I love Rosemary Clooney. I may have to do a special music article just for her. *sigh*
Thank you CR for all your amazing comments. You’ve left me speechless and I’m so glad you found it all so interesting and entertaining. When I did this article I wanted to share with everyone music most of us had never heard. Like you, I don’t pay much attention. I mean, I do, but I don’t. I think it’s because some award years the material has been less than stellar (for me).
This article gives a great idea of how music changed and what was popular. I love Mancini and he had a lot of original songs nominated.
Again, I’m so glad you enjoyed this article. 🙂
Hey CR! What’s your vote?
OB,
If I ever get to interview Rob, my first question will be, “Are you a man? Or a muppet?” 🙂
This is for Paris ( I know how much you love Karen 🙂 )
This competed with the theme for Shaft. Yeaaaahhhh…How did Shaft win? Not saying I don’t get down with the tune, but…ah, never mind…
And these:
(I can tell I would cry through this movie)
cry through the movie Kotch. Just wanted to clarify. 🙂
WOW. What happened? 10 years of the sixties and the old playbook gets completely thrown out. This is no less orchestral than LB’s other winners before it, but who thought this much blues would ever have a competitive shot at the Oscar’s. Please put the kids to bed; I have to play something else from that sound track. Here’s Isaac Haynes supplying yet another example of the west coast soul of that time period.
I loved Karen C. too… Such beautiful and unique voice, lyrics and music.
Her voice is hauntingly beautiful…again I may need to do an article just on her. One night, hate to throw you under the bus Paris (haha), Paris and I were both on youtube finding KC songs. I’m pretty sure we BOTH were singing them full out in our respective homes. I know I was and she knew it. hahahaha!!! yeah, it was pretty spectacular! 🙂
LB-
Well first the name “Shaft” itself is not too inviting. That may be the reason to take pause with the music.
* snort *
Many people have heard Christopher Cross referred to as a one hit wonder; the song below makes it clear this is not true.
But other than the late Dudley Moore, this song track addition must have paid most of the cultural capitol for the recent Russell Brand remake of “Arthur.”
CR- Ahhh! U are fantastic. Thank u for posting this.
Beauty and the Beast; I’m sorry, I’m understanding less and less about the 1990’s. Ladies what is this about?
John Goodman and Billy Crystal, channeling Randy Newman was a smart translation of the source material and a welcome break from the feature film maestro. Again here’s the instrumental version without Newman’s vocals.
In memory of Whitney Houston. What an amazing voice and artist.
I’m still in shock and yet not surprised. May she finally be at peace. Thank you for posting this song. This one in particular is what won me over as a fan. I listened to it countless times, and it will always be a classic.
The only rendition I have ever loved…what the hell is wrong with everyone else as of late who can’t get the dang lyrics?
Whitney, we love you and are grateful for the gift you shared with all the world.