Oscars: "Once" Wins Best Song, Blanchett's Dylan Defeated

The little movie (and soundtrack) that could just kept on doing at last night's Academy Awards ceremony, as Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's "Falling Slowly" from the film Once took home the prize for Best Original Song. "Falling Slowly" beat out three tunes from Enchanted and one from August Rush -- plus non-nominated songs from Eddie Vedder's Into The Wild soundtrack -- to win the Oscar, adding another trophy to sit beside the Grammy Hansard and Irglova won earlier this month in the same category. Also on Rock Daily's radar was Cate Blanchett's Best Supporting Actress bid for portraying a faux Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. Despite being an assumed favorite, Blanchett lost out to dark horse Tilda Swinton for her role in Michael Clayton. In case you missed the Academy Awards because you were too busy watching The Wire or Rock of Love 2, or if you just want to relive the action, Peter Travers has you covered with his Oscars Live Blog.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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