Eminem, U2 Earn Oscar Noms

Eminem earned his first Academy Award nomination this morning for "Lose Yourself," a track from 8 Mile that received a nod for Best Original Song. Other nominees in the category include first-timers U2 for "The Hands That Built America" (from Gangs of New York) and Paul Simon for "Father and Daughter" (The Wild Thornberrys Movie).

U2 have typically fared better with the Golden Globes, earning nominations for "Stay" (from Faraway, So Close) in 1994, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" (from Batman Forever) in 1996, and finally winning last month for "Hands." Simon is an even more unlikely first-timer, having been snubbed for 1968's "Mrs. Robinson" from The Graduate.

Rounding out the Best Original Song category this year is "Burn It Blue" (from Frida) -- composed by Elliot Goldenthal and Julie Taymor and performed by Caetano Veloso -- and Catherine Zeta-Jones' and Renee Zellweger's performance of John Kander's and Fred Ebb's "I Move On" from Chicago, which led all films with thirteen Oscar noms.

Last year's winner was Randy Newman for "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters Inc., his first win after eight nominations. Best Original Song nominees typically perform at the Oscar ceremony.

In the Best Original Score category the nominees were John Williams for Catch Me If You Can; Elmer Bernstein for Far From Heaven; Elliot Goldenthal for Frida; Philip Glass for The Hours and Thomas Newman for The Road to Perdition.

The seventy-fifth annual Academy Awards are scheduled for March 23rd in Los Angeles and will be aired live on ABC.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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