Earlier today you probably caught me complaining about the way the Academy Awards screwed up the performance of its best song “Falling Slowly” from Once, by adding in all kinds of awful, extraneous, orchestra crap to what Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova were doing. It’s an amazing song, but one that great because of its simplicity. It’s supposed to be a guy, a girl, a guitar, and a piano. Nothing else.
Well for those of you who haven’t seen Once, here’s your chance to see what “Falling Slowly” would have been like if Oscar had let them play it properly, instead of giving us extreme close-ups on the Academy Awards orchestra conductor. CB’s own Stuart Wood found this for us on You Tube this morning, a recording of a stripped down, Live performance of “Falling Slowly” by Glen and Marketa. Watch it and then compare to the way the Oscar’s mangled it Sunday night here.
And to really give you a sense of how great this song is done right, here’s Glen and Marketa’s best scene from Once, their first performance in the film together playing “Falling Slowly”:
Alright, I’ve got that out of my system. I promise to stop obsessing over it now. Promise you’ll seek out Once, and I’ll promise never to mention this again. At least until the next time I open iTunes.
