Yahoo Lifestyle Oscars’ Best Original Song Nominees Sound Off on ‘Disappointing’ Decision to Omit Performances From Telecast in Songwriters Hall of Fame Panel
Songwriters representing all five of the compositions nominated for best original song at the 2025 Academy Awards got together virtually for a Songwriters Hall of Fame discussion that is premiering online today, discussing not only the inspiration for their award-worthy tunes but the hot-button topic about how they feel about the Oscars having announced the decision to eliminate performances of those songs from this year’s telecast.
The hour-long discussion, which is free and can be found on the SHOF website here (now through March 3), features Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada, writers of “Like a BIrd” from “Sing Sing”; Brandi Carlile, who co-wrote “Never Too Late,” from the documentary “Elton John: Never Too Late”; Clément Ducol and Camille, dominated twice for a pair of “Emilia Pérez” songs, “El Mal” and “Mi Camino”; and category mainstay Diane Warren, up for “The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight,” her 16th nomination in the category
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The panel is co-hosted by Nile Rodgers, who currently serves as Songwriters Hall of Fame Chairman, and Paul Williams, a SHOF Johnny Mercer Award honoree and an Oscar winner from 1977 for best original song for the Barbra Streisand-cowritten “Evergreen.”
Late in the conversation, Rodgers asks the panelists how they feel about the Oscars nixing best song performances from the telecast this year, which has rarely happened in the past, with the Academy sometimes having threatened to leave the songs out but relenting under pressure — though the org’s resolve seems to be greater this year. Although some of the songs might be more missed by the viewing public than others, the biggest lost opportunity as far as mass viewer interest goes is probably the chance to have Elton John performing on the telecast, along with his co-nominee Carlile.
“On one hand, I feel really sad because I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to perform on the Oscars again,” Carlile says. “I can’t fathom it, especially with Elton John. When I first found Elton John, it was in the ’90s, and he was winning an Oscar for ‘The Lion King,’ and I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘One day when I grow up, if I could get the right clothes, I could go to his Oscar party.’ So to have the opportunity to perform with Elton John on the Oscars is a hard thing to not have manifest.”
She adds,”And then at the same time, I feel a lot of relief from getting to get all dressed up pretty, people watch, see all those famous people in one room, and come in on Elton’s arm and to get the lay of the land and not have a lot of pressure on me because it’s already just almost unimaginable to be nominated for one. So I could go either way. There are things about it that make me sad, but there are things about it that make me feel like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll just have a drink then. Maybe I’ll get dressed up and have a drink for once and not feel existential dread and fear.’ But I would go either way. I just can’t believe I’m in the conversation.”
Says Rodgers: “He’s amazing. And I think you’re incredible. And I would’ve loved that moment. So I’m a little disappointed. I like the musical performances.”
Warren is, as anyone might expect, outspoken on the topic, as she was in the past when the Academy made moves to deemphasize or eliminate the traditional song performances.
“I think it’s extremely disrespectful to all the song nominees,” Warren tells the SHOF panel. “In 2021, they did all the songs in a pre-show, which no one kind of knew was on, and it wasn’t shown outside of America. And there were really beautiful performances. … But there was no music on the show. … We’ve all written songs that are really integral to the movies they’re in. And to me, it’s unfair to both the nominees and the audience out there to not be able to hear them. This is my 16th time. I’m very lucky, but who knows, it might be the only time some people get a chance to hear their songs sung on the Oscars. I mean, who doesn’t want to see all these songs on the Oscars? And I think it’s really deeply wrong, and we were told about that the night before the nominations,” Warren continues. “It’s like, ‘Whoa,’ really? … This year they’re not even doing a pre-show, so they literally have done away with the songs.”
Williams notes that the Academy has said it will still feature the best original song category on the telecast, but via filmed segments, not live performances: “I think the decision was made to, instead of performing the songs, take time with the songwriters, have a little conversation and get to know who they are.”
But Warren says that, as of early last week, when the SHOF conversation was recorded, she hadn’t personally been alerted about those plans. “I don’t know about any of you guys, but no one’s reached out to me and told me what they’re doing instead. Have they called you guys? So right now, they’re doing something with the songwriters, but none of the songwriters know what it is.
“I just want to say,” she adds, “that especially with these songs and what some of these songs are saying, they have a message what we’re going through right now. Music is a healer. And to take that out of this, it’s wrong.”
Alexander says that it’s his understanding that the rationale for nixing the performances “was that they wanted to highlight the people that have been affected by the fires, and that was sort of the reason and to allocate enough time for it…”
“But I have a feeling there’s going to be other musical performances,” says Warren.
Says Quesada: “Yeah, it’s unfortunate for sure, but I think for Abe and I, being the new kids at the Oscars this year, not really in a position to sound ungrateful for just being able to be in the room amongst you all… But yes, I echo what everybody said. … Diane, we will all stand behind you, and you’re outspoken.”
“I just think everybody was nominated by our amazing peers in the music branch, and it’s a big honor,” Warren affirms.” I’m not taking that away. The fact that we got nominated, we already won. It’s amazing. But you just want the songs to be heard, especially at a time like this. … These are healing songs — like what heals better than music, and what are you going to have instead? A show with no music. Who’s going to watch?”
The rest of the conversation traces the journey of the nominated songs, starting with Carlile talking about hooking up with her idol and friend, John.
“When I saw that documentary and I saw it all in one place, that archival footage… when I got to the end of it, I thought, ‘He’s so fucking tough.’ That’s the thing I wish people more people knew about Elton John. He is an Iron Man, baby,” she notes, using a term she wrote into the song’s lyrics. “I went away and I just wrote this poem. I didn’t know if it was ever going to become a song. I put that poem in front of him for the first time, not knowing if he would be able to turn it into a song or not. When he did, it felt like all my dreams from 11 years old until now. It snapped true in an instant.”
Asks Williams, “One of the great things about being a songwriter is we don’t have to give up our fan card. I can see somebody that I’ve known for 40 years. If it’s Quincy Jones, I’m going to have one of those gulp moments and say, ‘Oh my God. There’s Q.’ So you’re walking into the room to sit down with Elton to write. This is an amazing situation because not only are you writing with Elton, but you’re writing a deeply personal story. … But how did Elton feel about sharing this intimate story?”
“If you write a lyric about how you feel about him or how you think he feels about himself, you’re communicating something really important to him, and he’s writing to it and singing it before it even occurs to him what you’re saying,” Carlile says. “So over time, that song has sunk in, and he’s recognized how synergetic it is with the documentary, and how synergetic it is with the way I feel about him, and the way the world feels about him. He’s had to let that all in because he had to see us to sing it. So that’s the beauty of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Bernie’s written really critical songs of Elton that Elton’s had to sing. Bernie has professed his love for Elton, and Elton’s had to sing it. That’s really what I wanted to do around this documentary. I wanted to tell Elton how I feel about him because he wouldn’t listen to me in real life. It’s turned into how he feels about himself. When his eye went wrong and we were together shortly after, he says, ‘I’m an Iron Man, baby.’ I was thought, yes, it got in. It got in.”
Alexander talks about creating the lone original song that appears in the prison drama “Sing Sing.”
“When Adrian sent me the trailer and mood board, instantly I was moved by this particular sequence in the film,” he says. “Adrian and I kept going back and forth, and we thought that it was important to personify the emotion that we were seeing and the emotion that we were feeling, and we came up with the idea of a bird. … When you deny a bird from flying, you’re denying it from being precisely what he was created for. And when you incarcerate human beings and remove them from being humanized, you’re removing them from the God-given thing that they were created for. We thought that that filled the feeling and emotion that we got from the film. Adrian was actually going on tour with the Black Pumas, and I was about to embark on my own tour. And so we had maybe a few days to really put this together. And so we were really focused on making sure that that imagery came out in the best light.”
Of her contribution to “The Six Triple Eight,” Warren says it is “one of my favorite, favorite, favorite songs I ever wrote in my life.”
She notes of the real subjects of the film, “These women went through every obstacle they could possibly get thrown at them. And they delivered and delivered the mail. They did everything that no one thought they could do. I always relate to that in my life because people always tell me I can’t do stuff. And I always like to prove people wrong. And I love that these women, through all the hardship they had to endure, all the racism and all the horrible situations they had to deal with, were able to prove everybody wrong and do it at lightning speed. It’s the journey. To me, that captured their journey, that ‘It’s the getting there and where you’re going to, going through hell, but you’re till going to make it through.’ No matter what, through whatever, if you believe that, you can do it.
“As I’m writing it, I’m thinking, ‘This is so perfect for the movie. It really captures it but when I do it right, it can live outside of the movie.’ Because we all have our own journey. We’re all dealing with all kinds of shit that isn’t easy. And there’s a line in the song that says, ‘When you’re going with your heart, you can go farther than you ever thought possible,’ which is my favorite line in the song. And that really is true with all of us songwriters. We’ve all had to prove people wrong, and it’s not an easy road, but I’m proud to be a part of this movie. It’s a great movie. It’s time that the story was told. Tyler Perry did a great job.”
Of having H.E.R. sing it, Warren says the singer “hit me on Instagram and said, ‘I think it’s time for us to work together.’ And I had just written ‘The Journey.’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, there’s no accidents.’ When I do a song for a movie, I’m a casting director. And that artist must be authentic to not only the song, but to the movie. Gabi’s gone through it all… To get where she’s gone, and her journey’s been amazing. And so I said, ‘Just come to the studio.’ In this room, right over there at that piano, she came at noon. I played her the song. She was blown away. She goes, ‘I’m doing the song today.’ She played it. She played the guitar. She did that vocal. That’s Whitney-level vocals.”
Camille and Ducol discuss the seven-year journey to bring “Emilia Perez” to the screen and their two years of work on the music.
Says Williams, “‘Mi Camino’ and ‘El Mal’ — very different songs. Incredibly important to the story and all. But I would have to tell you that ‘El Mal’ has such impact for me. I love them both. But would you talk about the challenges of writing those very different songs with very different emotional content?”
Says Ducol, “For ‘El Mal,’ this is actually the song that gave us the most trouble to write because the subject matter is so harsh, and singing about it in front of this corrupt and despicable people was complicated to translate musically. So, we were between cynicism, irony, distance, lyricism. We made six or seven different songs until we finally found the tone with this sort of rock opera rap. And Jacque was also inspired by Prokofiev’s Cantata October and the use of Emilia’s voice in the hall with a microphone in the background, which provides a counterpoint to the hall. And in the end, this is Zoe’s energy that helped us to find the right arrangement.
“When it came to picture editing, the production was more electronic, and Jacques Audiard came and told us, ‘OK, I want something more rock, more rage.’ So we redid the whole thing live with a rock band over Zoe’s performance. It was a long journey to write this song because the subject is very harsh.
Notes Camille, saying that their other song, connected to Selena Gomez in the film, is a love song: “Most songs are, I would say, deeply love songs. And when you listen to ‘El Mal,’ you think, ‘Oh, this is not a love song.’ But I think today we’re learning that giving love is also setting limits. This is a way to be loving to the world, is just to say no to that. And it was important for us to write that song and for the director too. He’s very concerned by corruption. And corruption is all over the world, and this is what the song is about. ‘Mi Camino’ is really a love song, but it’s a song of self-love, of self-esteem. It’s about a woman that makes peace with herself.
“She could be considered as a weak person. She parties too much. She doesn’t take care of her children at that period of her life. She lives in a golden cage. She doesn’t make money. And in that song, she’s in a nightclub and she says that she loves herself, that no matter what she does, even if she knows that she makes mistakes, she loves herself. And it’s also a way to say that when you’re partying, it doesn’t mean you’re superficial. It was important to bring some depth to that nightclub. Their love turns that nightclub into a chapel. So they’re partying, but it’s a tender moment and there’s something spiritual about it.”
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