Episode 62: Kings and Vagabonds (1994)

FromThe Best Song Podcast

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Episode 62: Kings and Vagabonds (1994)

FromThe Best Song Podcast

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Length:

84 minutes

Released:

Mar 4, 2024

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

Tim Rice returns to the show to offer a masterclass in songwriting as he talks about writing the lyrics for the three Oscar-nominated songs from the animated movie The Lion King. He details how the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" changed and why writing a song for a warthog shouldn't feel much different from writing for "the wife of an Argentinian dictator."

Released:

Mar 4, 2024

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (72)

Learn more about the 470-plus songs nominated in the first 90 years of the Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as the songwriters and singers who made them popular ... or not so popular. New episodes every Monday!

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Episode 2: It’s Not a Foxtrot or a Polka: This episode of The Best Song Podcast officially begins the journey through the 90 years of the Academy Award for Best Original Song, detailing the three nominees in the inaugural year of the award. In 1934, the songs not only showed the impact of so... by The Best Song Podcast
70 min listen
Episode 19: Better Save a Chair by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 5: The Way You Sing Off-Key: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers continued to light up the silver screen in 1937, and it was the Gershwin brothers -- Ira and George -- who were responsible for the nominated song that accompanied their song-and-dance routine. Not to be outdone, Bing C... by The Best Song Podcast
53 min listen
Episode 7: I’ll Hold You In My Heart: The year 1939 has been regarded as one of the most important years in film history, and you need to look no further than the Best Picture nominees from that year to prove that. Though one of the nominees for Best Song stands out tall among the others... by The Best Song Podcast
42 min listen
Episode 1 - Prologue: The first episode of The Best Song Podcast examines the early history of the movies, from the first words sung by Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer in 1927 to the songs that could have won an Oscar in the later 1920s and early 1930s, if the Academy Award ... by The Best Song Podcast
35 min listen
Episode 18: A Kiss Is All I Need: One of the Oscar-nominated songs for the year 1950 is very well-known, but the version of "Mona Lisa" that Nat King Cole made famous is not the one heard in the movie Captain Carey USA. Learn more about the history behind the creation of this song on... by The Best Song Podcast
59 min listen
Episode 14: As Happy As a Christmas Tree: After listing 14 nominees for the Academy Award for Best Song in 1945, the Academy fixed the rules and started limiting nominations to just five beginning in 1946. The number of nominated songs was down, but the quality of the songs seemed to be much... by The Best Song Podcast
69 min listen
Episode 6: Everything I Do Is Depending on You: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made a big change to the rules for submitting songs for award consideration in 1938, allowing studios to submit one song for an automatic nomination. That resulted in 10 song nominees in 1938, and host ... by The Best Song Podcast
78 min listen
Episode 9: A Voice Like Music: Hollywood had reason to be worried in 1941, not the least of which was the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese that December. Commercial television made its debut in July, giving the public a reason to stay home for entertainment instead of going ... by The Best Song Podcast
80 min listen
Episode 3: Delightful to Know and Heaven to Kiss: The second year of the Oscar for Best Song introduces us to the soon-to-be legendary songwriter Irving Berlin, who crafted one of Fred Astaire's signature songs that led to one of the most iconic film dance scenes from Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We'l... by The Best Song Podcast
47 min listen
Episode 33: She’s the Devil: One year after the Beatles gave us a rock 'n' roll movie musical, Frenchman Michel Legrand gave us the first fully sung-through original movie musical with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. He and lyricist/director Jacques Demy set the world on fire with t... by The Best Song Podcast
71 min listen
Episode 24: The Future’s Not Ours to See: Six of the nine men nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar for 1956 had already won at least one Academy Award. Will this year's winner add another golden boy to their mantel? Or will it be first-timers Tom Adair and Leith Stevens for their song ... by The Best Song Podcast
44 min listen
Episode 8: Fate Steps In: World War II was raging in Europe in 1940, but Americans were largely going about business as usual while Hitler was conquering the continent. Hollywood was not yet affected by the war, and the Academy Award-nominated songs in 1940 brought us more cl... by The Best Song Podcast
93 min listen
Episode 4: A Package of Sunshine and Flowers: The number of nominees for the Academy Award for Best Original Song increased from three to six in 1936, and host Jeff Commings presents all of them in this episode. We'll hear a song from Cole Porter, who brought his popular talents from Broadway to... by The Best Song Podcast
45 min listen
Episode 21: Bells Will Ring: Nat King Cole, Doris Day, and Dean Martin introduced three of the five Oscar-nominated songs for 1953, and all three are serious contenders for the Academy Award. Two of the songs have become favorites many decades later, written by men that had grea... by The Best Song Podcast
54 min listen
Episode 16: You Speak and I Hear Violins: Sammy Cahn earned the first of five consecutive Academy Award nominations in 1948, working with longtime collaborator Jule Styne for Doris Day's film debut Romance on the High Seas. Leo Robin, already an Academy Award winner, had two songs nominated ... by The Best Song Podcast
52 min listen
Episode 15: Everything Is Satis-factual: Not every Academy Award-nominated song has survived as beloved classics. Two of the nominees of 1947 illustrate that, and host Jeff Commings talks about one song that has plagued the Walt Disney Studio for generations because of its film's seemingly ... by The Best Song Podcast
58 min listen
Episode 11: The Gravy’s In the Navy: World War II officially invaded the Academy Awards in 1943, with four of the 10 nominees for Best Song dealing with the war. One of them was a comical take on the men left behind, while the other three were love songs or tributes to the men fighting ... by The Best Song Podcast
73 min listen
Episode 17: The World Is Such a Lovely Place: Two of the songs nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song of 1949 probably should not have been eligible for the award. One of them had been written many years earlier, while the other heavily borrowed from a folk song written about a century ea... by The Best Song Podcast
52 min listen
Episode 12: Walking Around in a Wonderful Glow: The year 1944 saw an astounding 12 songs nominated for the Academy Award, including Bing Crosby's latest chart-topping hit and one of the many songs from Judy Garland's latest musical sensation. Speaking of that musical, there was controversy over wh... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 13: We’ll Settle Down in Dallas: The Academy's rule that every studio or production company could submit a song for automatic nomination reached its apex in 1945 with 14 songs vying for the top award. It could be argued that one of the songs should not have been nominated because it... by The Best Song Podcast
110 min listen
Episode 10: I Like Banana Splits: The Gershwin brothers -- George and Ira -- were mentioned in one of the songs nominated for the Academy Award in 1942, but the brothers themselves did not earn a nomination. Respected songwriters such as Irving Berlin, Harry Warren, and Jerome Kern w... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 30: You Better Walk Humble: Film composers were starting to take over the duties of writing the music for movie songs in the 1960s, and that was evident in the list of Oscar-nominated songs from that year. Four of the five songs contain music by score composers instead of train... by The Best Song Podcast
47 min listen
Episode 20: Don’t Be Glum: Sammy Cahn's fifth consecutive Oscar nomination for songwriting came for his second gig writing for opera star Mario Lanza. Cahn will have tough competition for the Academy Award for Original Song, as the new writing duo of Ned Washington and Dimitri... by The Best Song Podcast
56 min listen
Episode 31: Be a Happy Camper: Movie songs were on an upswing of popularity with the public after the success of "Moon River," but 1963 did not help that cause with a list of five Oscar-nominated songs that were not major hits. One of the songs came from a cringe-inducing Italian ... by The Best Song Podcast
47 min listen
Episode 28: ’Twas So Good to Be Young Then: Rock and roll and Hollywood still fought with the public for their ears and money when it came to popular songs in 1960. Elvis was still the King of Rock 'n' Roll, but movie songs were failing to gain much respect and love from audiences. The five no... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 48: Baby, Hold Me Tight: Dean Pitchford joins the show to talk about writing the Oscar-nominated title song from the 1980 movie Fame. In addition to his recollections of the process he and composer Michael Gore took to arrive at the global hit song, Pitchford talks about the... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 22: Make It Mine: The battle for the Academy award for Best Original Song became a little more intense in 1954, as the film composer competed with the professional songwriter for control over who writes songs for the movies. Dimitri Tiomkin began the war after winning... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 26: What Makes a Sad Heart Sing: The Academy's music branch made the nomination process for the Best Original Song Oscar a lot more interesting beginning in 1958. The new preliminary shortlist was started in this year, whittling down the many potential nominees down to 10 before ano... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 25: Take My Hand With a Fervent Prayer: One would think that the movie musical was dying in 1957, given that only one of the Oscar-nominated original songs from that year came from a musical. Usually, three or four original songs are nominated from musicals. That doesn't mean that the movi... by The Best Song Podcast
65 min listen

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Episode 68: The World Is Not My Playground (2000): Randy Newman was looking for his first Oscar win with his seventh songwriting nomination, this time for the comedic song "A Fool In Love." He had some competition from three great singer-songwriters, as Bob Dylan, Bjork, and Sting earned their first ... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 63: Sighs and Whispers (1995): The members of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences split the original score category in two in 1995, but the rules for original song stayed the same. Pop songs and traditional movie songs were still in the running for ... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 61: Don’t Turn Your Back On Me (1993): The pop music world invaded the Academy Awards honoring films from 1993, with Janet Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and James Ingram among the nominees for the Best Original Song Oscar. Host Jeff Commings has many stories to share about the c... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 60: Won’t You Hold Me In Your Arms?(1992): Host Jeff Commings invited not one, not two, but THREE Oscar-nominated songwriters to this episode to share their behind-the-scenes tales of creating two of the five Oscar nominees for original song of 1992. Jud Friedman and Allan Rich talk about wri... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 53: I Have Learned to Let You Go: After the historic list of Oscar-nominated songs of 1984, the five nominees for 1985 had a lot to live up to. On this episode of The Best Song Podcast, host Jeff Commings tells of Lionel Richie's double nomination in the same year as his successful "... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 51: The Ice-Blue Line of Insanity: The 50th anniversary of the Original Song Academy Award featured two songs from the mega-popular movie Flashdance, which re-ignited the movie soundtrack craze, and two songs from Barbra Streisand's directorial debut Yentl. The other nominated song re... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 48: Baby, Hold Me Tight: Dean Pitchford joins the show to talk about writing the Oscar-nominated title song from the 1980 movie Fame. In addition to his recollections of the process he and composer Michael Gore took to arrive at the global hit song, Pitchford talks about the... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 46: The World Goes Tumbling On: The pressure of creating a hit song after the success of "Evergreen" and "You Light Up My Life" was felt in 1978, though the Oscar-nominated songs did not really reach that bar. But not for lack of trying. The musical Grease became the highest-grossi... by The Best Song Podcast
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Episode 62: Kings and Vagabonds (1994)

Episode 62: Kings and Vagabonds (1994)

Description

Titles in the series (72)

More Episodes from The Best Song Podcast

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