Peter Gabriel Won't Perform at 2009 Oscars
Wrote Down to Earth with Thomas Newman for Disney/Pixar WALL-E
Feb 17, 2009
Peter Gabriel – who co-wrote and performed the song "Down to Earth" for the Disney/Pixar film WALL-E – announced that he won't be performing the Oscar-nominated tune on the telecast.
Gabriel explained on his monthly video blog that his decision is "a little protest" against the fact that the tune has been compacted into a 60-second snippet, during a medley in the middle of the Oscar telecast.
Peter Gabriel Will Not Sing Nominated "Down to Earth" at Oscars
"I've decided to withdraw from the ceremony," Gabriel said about his decision. "I'll still go, but I won't be performing."
He hopes to get the Soweto Gospel Choir (who sang backing vocals on "Down to Earth") to perform in his stead.
Gabriel said he was excited about performing the song with co-composer Thomas Newman during the telecast, as it was his first nomination for an Oscar.
"We assumed, as there were only 3 nominations this year," he said, "that we would get to perform the song in its entirety, like last year . . . or any other year for that matter."
However, he since learned that the show's producers – trying to trim the ceremony's notoriously long running time in the face of declining ratings – were going to chop "Down to Earth" down to a minute and shoehorn it into a medley with the other two nominations for Best Original Song.
"It's a bit unfortunate," Gabriel continues. "The songwriters are a very small part of the filmmaking process but we still work bloody hard and deserve a place in the ceremony as well."
He feels it's his way of making " a little protest" against the decision not to allow the tune in its entirety.
"I'm an old fart and it's not going to do me any harm," he says. "With other artists, it's not so easy."
Bruce Springsteen Not Nominated in Best Song Category
That's not the only controversy affecting the Best Original Song nominations. The other is the absence of a nomination for Bruce Springsteen, whose tune "The Wrestler" was attached to the film of the same name. Springsteen won Best Original Song at the Golden Globe awards and was heavily favoured to take the Oscar if he had secured a nomination.
Instead, the other 2 nominees for Best Song are from Slumdog Millionaire: “Jai Ho” (Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar) and “O Saya” (Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam).
The 2009 Oscar ceremony happens on February 22nd.
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