“Remember Me,” from Disney-Pixar’s “Coco,” won the best song Oscar for songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
This was the second Oscar win for the New York-based tunesmiths, having previously taken home the statue for the massive hit “Let It Go” for another Disney film, 2013’s “Frozen.” They are now two-for-two in Oscar competition.
“Remember Me” was widely favored to win, as it plays a key role in the narrative about a Mexican boy who travels to the Land of the Dead to learn the truth about a famous musician who may be his ancestor.
The original song is heard in four different contexts in the film: First as played in grand style by Ernesto de la Cruz, that now-dead musician; then in lullaby form by Hector, another dead songwriter who fears being forgotten by his family; by the little boy, to his great-great grandmother in an emotional finale; and by Miguel with Natalie Lafourcade in a pop version under the end titles.
The Lopezes researched Mexican music from the mid-20th-century and penned a song in the bolero-ranchero style that could work as a quiet ballad or in a more boisterous style; then added a lyric that spoke, as the film does, about family and intimate connections.
The Lopezes win deprived Benj Pasek and Justin Paul of back-to-back Oscar victories. Pasek and Paul won last year as the lyricists of “La La Land” and had already won this year’s Golden Globe for “This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman.”
It also means that veteran songwriter Diane Warren has still not won despite nine nominations. She was hopeful that her song “Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall,” which has become something of a political anthem, might get her the elusive statue. But it was not to be.
Read the full list of Oscar winners here.
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