We went to see Sarah McLachlan live in Chicago on Tuesday night, and while she did not play the song from Toy Story 2, it made us think of all the times critics, experts, and fans have dissed choices for “Best Picture” at the Academy Awards—although rarely criticizing the winners for “Best Original Song” for some reason. Well, this is a moment to spotlight it.
“When She Loved Me” was written by Randy Newman (lyrics and music) and performed by McLachlan in her beautifully smooth, heavenly melodic voice. The song’s impact on the audience is undeniable: it’s emotionally heart-wrenching in context of the film’s plot, in looking at how kids age out of their beloved toys and leave them behind for adulthood.
McLachlan’s vocals are amazing in the sense of the vulnerability expressed in the delivery of the brilliant lyrics by Newman; one could argue, objectively, the song achieves a perfect blend of composition and delivery, really. The live performance on the television telecast for the 72nd Academy Awards Show was just as incredible, too, emotionally. Who doesn’t cry?!
So, what happened? The idiot voters at the time just threw the Oscar to yet another forgettable Disney animated-movie song, “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan. Does anyone even remember this movie, let alone the song that won the Academy Award? It’s neither memorable or remarkable; it’s just another bubble-gum attempt at a pop song by Disney.
We have no issue with Phil Collins, but he’s not the vocalist that McLachlan is, obviously; the composition itself, as noted, is bland and indistinguishable from a dozen other songs that populated Disney animated movies of the 1990s. The lyrics are generic and could be from any movie every made that has any sort of love story in the middle of its narrative.
Collins is no Newman, of course, in terms of songwriting, either: Newman has been nominated a whopping 22 times now for Oscars, winning twice for “Best Original Song”: both these wins came after this voting blunder, too, making us believe the voters realized they screwed up and tried to make amends later for lesser Newman compositions.
Can anyone name these two songs? We didn’t think so. You can look them up on your own time, but the fact Newman never won an Oscar for his efforts prior to Toy Story 2 tell us a lot as well: the original scores from Ragtime and The Natural, the original songs from Parenthood and Toy Story, etc. The list goes on for how many Oscar statues he deserves.
We know voters are never perfect, but sometimes they really screw up—like the time Argo won “Best Picture” over Les Misérables and Lincoln. Heck, even in this musical category for the 72nd Oscars, “Blame Canada” from South Park was a better song than the Collins track from Tarzan. It may not be the worst voting blunder ever, but it certainly is way up top a list.
[Editor’s Note: Someday, we will review a lot of Oscars voting mistakes like this, similarly to what we’ve done on our companion sports blog with the major professional sports in North America.]
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