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Cape Town - We're obsessed with the Oscars this year. It's a dynamic race with a lot of powerful movies with important messages.
Flicks like Call Me By Your Name, Coco and others have captured our imagination and their soundtracks are just as important.
In the build-up to the big ceremony that will take place on 4 March 2018 and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, we did some digging to find out how each track nominated for Best Original Song came about, who performs it and what inspired it.
Here are the interesting stories behind the Oscar nominees for Best Original Song 2018:
Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens from Call Me By Your Name:
Sufjan Stevens was asked to contribute to the film’s soundtrack by its director Luca Guadagnino as well as narrate the film, according a Deadline interview.
In the interview the singer said: “He initially asked me to be the voice of the older Elio (Pearlman), to contribute to that voice over.” An offer that Sufjan turned down, however he did contribute to the soundtrack, even though he usually tries to stay away from working in film. He did so because said he loves the way that Guadagnino makes music a vital part of the film making process and end product unlike a lot of directors.
The song, that was nominated for an Oscar is called Mystery of Love, and is the backdrop of the two main characters - in the film - falling in love. It has an airy quality about it that carries the singer's beautifully soft voice.
Mighty River by Mary J Blige from Mudbound
The Oscar nominated ballad, Mighty River speaks about the social and racial themes of the film Mudbound and was written by Best Supporting Actress nominee Mary J. Blige along with Raphael Saadiq.
Speaking about the track, Mary told Billboard: “It’s a really good and therapeutic to write a song like this for this movie, because when you watch the movie, all you see is the lyrics in this song. You just see every lyric. It’s like, 'Come on, enough of this already!”
Stand Up for Something by Andra Day featuring Common from Marshall
This uplifting anthem was written by industry legends Diane Warren and Lonnie Lynn.
The song was performed by Andra Day and here’s what she had to say about it in an interview with iHeartRadio: “To me, Stand Up For Something means exactly that. It means that we all have a purpose here. And when we see things or we experience things, they affect us in different ways.”
Remember Me by Benjamin Bratt from Coco
Academy Award-winning song writing duo of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote this song with multiple meanings so that it can be used multiple times throughout the narrative of Coco by different characters. In an interview about the song and its message Kristen said: “At its core, its a message of goodbye,”. She added: “It could be taken many ways.”
This Is Me by The Greatest Showman Ensemble from The Greatest Showman
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul wrote this bombastic feel-good song. The pair also wrote songs on the award-winning La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack, but this gig came around before all of that acclaim and they had to pull out all the stops to impress Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey according to an interview with Playbill.
To do so the pair performed an initial “audition” sample which is now known as the swirling melody A Million Dreams which is also featured on the soundtrack.
