Best Original Song Oscar nominees

Eye on the Oscars: Music

By ANTHONY D'ALESSANDRO

Top to bottom: 'Enchanted,' 'August Rush' and 'Once'

Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz
Oscar pedigree: For Menken: 15 noms, eight wins -- one trophy shy of matching Alfred Newman's record of nine music Oscars; for Schwartz: five noms, three wins
Awards to date: Golden Globe and BFCA song nom ("That's How You Know"); BFCA composer nod.
State of the art: "There is a big line between adapting a musical work for another medium and writing an original musical specifically for the medium. I hope 'Enchanted' opened that door in the same way that animated musicals did," says Menken. "For any musical to work, the songs can never be a side element. They're always the spine."

'Happy Working Song'
"Enchanted"
Challenge: "Getting the wink in the lyrics to work," says Menken about this knock on "Whistle While You Work" from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." "We wanted to let the audience in on the joke, even if the song had emotion in it."
Resonance: "The underlying concept was to progress in time musically from the classic Disney songs in 'Snow White' and 'Cinderella' to those in the Alan Menken/Howard Ashman era," Schwartz says.
Advantage: The hysterical use of the song in a sequence in which New York's rodents and cockroaches assist the princess in tidying up a posh Central Park pad.
Disadvantage: The "Dreamgirls" effect, whereby all of the "Enchanted" noms cancel each other out.

'So Close'
"Enchanted"
Challenge: "Everybody and their nephew knows what a ballad is," Menken explains, "and when you're writing something this intimate, it works its way up the corporate ladder."
Resonance: "Princess Giselle becomes a three-dimensional human being," Menken says about the princess's (Amy Adams) ballroom dance with Manhattan prince charming Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey). "She's no longer this fish-out-of water; she's a real girl."
Advantage: This "falling in love" kind of sequence is timeless.
Disadvantage: See previous.

'That's How You Know'
"Enchanted"
Challenge: "The infrastructure as far as getting all the actors in the scene familiar with the song, then coordinating how it's arranged in the film, then making sure that the actors have the full scope of the song while they're moving," says Menken about syncing the tune to film's big Central park sequence.
Resonance: "It captures the setting of New York City with its salsa and hard edge," the composer says. "The song had to be a melting pot of styles."
Advantage: Like Menken and Ashman's "Under the Sea," which won best song in 1989, it's the film's Busby Berkeley-like showstopper.
Disadvantage: Acad voters have favored Menken's ballads over his upbeat tunes.

'Raise It Up'
"August Rush"
Jamal Joseph, Tevin Thomas and Charles Mack
Oscar pedigree: None
Awards to date: None
Challenge: "As a songwriter, it comes when you specifically write for a project; then you have the tendency to write yourself in a corner. The box that you're creating has to fit what you need," Mack says. "Then again, the character is singing about something real, and in that regards, it's not far from what we're going through ourselves."
Resonance: "The song says, 'Hang in there with me. It takes a different kind of dream to raise it up.' When Evan (Freddie Highmore) goes into a Harlem church, he meets a young girl, Hope. It's a fairy-tale moment, and he begins to get the hope and inspiration he needs."
State of the art: "Sometimes it's those simple songs that capture a real moment and express what people are going through," Mack says about songwriting. "Sometimes songwriters write songs about things or characters that aren't real. One might be able to bump and grind to it in a club, but the song doesn't express who an artist is."
Advantage: Voters will be floored by the song's chilling gospel arrangement and effecting lyrics as well as the soulful vocals by 11-year-old Jamia Simone Nash.
Disadvantage: "August's" tepid reception at the box office and among critics could act as a detriment.

'Falling Slowly'
"Once"
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Oscar pedigree: None
Awards to date: BFCA win for best song, Grammy nom for best song
Challenge: "Typically when I write songs, it's to get through some heartache," says Hansard, "and in this situation I had to specifically write about this character who worked in a Hoover shop and had come out of this bad relationship."
Resonance: "Essentially, I had to think about my own relationship and take that sinking boat and point it home," says Hansard. "After the director, John Carney, heard the song, he built scenes around it and then asked me to contribute all the songs for the film. 'Falling' is saying, 'I don't know where this relationship is going, but we'll get somewhere positive.'"
State of the art: "It's a different kind of thinking, writing songs for movies," says Hansard. "Songwriting for me is self-medication; it's the blues. I never pick up a guitar unless I'm sad."
Advantage: Aside from being the film's signature love song, "Falling Slowly" might generate voter sympathy for the songwriters after they weathered a near disqualification of the tune by the Academy.
Disadvantage: The film's $9.4 million domestic B.O. might be a boon for the filmmakers and Fox Searchlight, but might constitute merely a cult following in the grand Acad scheme of things.