For Your Consideration: Counterfeit McCartney

I've had this tune stuck in my head for two weeks. "Love Take Me Down" is a pitch perfect parody of a Wings song that plays at the end of the movie Role Models. Now, you will swear to yourself it's a Wings tune, but it ain't. The real story behind it, along with the song itself, can be found here.

So, I'm just going to put this on the table: "Love Take Me Down" absolutely needs to be nominated for an Oscar.

To be clear, "Love Take Me Down" is as catchy, if not more catchy, than 90% of the songs nominated in the past twenty years. Certainly better than "Say You, Say Me" or that Phil Collins travesty "You'll Be In My Heart" from freakin' Tarzan.

And when was the last time a funny song - and by funny I mean a conceptually funny song, not some frothy Randy Newman ditty - ever got nominated? Jeez, you'd probably have to go back to the Blazing Saddles song, nominated way back in 1974 (it lost to a tune from Towering Inferno)

Finally, the song actually plays a role in the film itself, which should always be a vote in its favor.

Now you could say that Role Models wasn't a big enough movie to even be considered for an Oscar, but that's ridiculous. First of all, in a recession-starved year, the film made over 60 million bucks. But more to the point, who actually saw One Fine Day, The Karate Kid Part II and The Wild Thornberry's Movie? Nobody you want to know. And yet those films all had songs that were nominated.

But the real reason I am pushing so hard for "Love Take Me Down" is that if, by some miracle, it does somehow get nominated, the show's producers are going to be in a pickle. I mean, who can sing this song best of all?

Yep, Paul McCartney. He has to sing it.

Plus, he'll probably have to get Denny Laine to come play guitar on it with him. We'll get to witness a little mini-Wings reunion. It'll be life imitating art imitating art, if you consider Wings art, which I sort of mostly do.

In a year when pretty much nobody is going to be watching the Oscar ceremony because absolutely nobody saw any of the movies nominated (The Reader? Revolutionary Road? Che? Really, you did?!) this show is going to need every little twist and turn it can get in order to keep the audience glued to the set.

So, come on, let 'em in. Sure, it's just a silly love song. But with a little luck, we can work it out.

Comments

[RobinSeattle]

"Counterfeit McCartney" about rightly characterizes Paul's entire output post-"Band on the Run" since it was pretty much worthless on either the artistic or the "oh, what a catchy tune" level.

[auramac]

Didn't the Swell Season win last year? Great song, great, great group (duo).

[dsadowski]

I listened to the song and while it is pretty good, I could easily tell it wasn't Paul McCartney. It sounds no more like Wings than any number of songs by 10cc or other 1970s pop bands.

[DekeRivers]

Sorry, but it's not even eligible. The song has to be officially submitted by its studio, and then some academy committee checks to make sure it fits all their little rules. (It has to be intelligible, if it's in the credits it has to be the first piece of music after the movie ends, yadda yadda...) A few weeks back they released the list of the 49 eligible songs, and "Love Take Me Down" isn't on it. So either Universal didn't submit it, or it ran afoul of an AMPAS rule. I'd guess the former, but that's just a guess.

On the other hand, you'll be happy to know that ELEVEN freakin' songs from "HIgh School Musical 3" are in the running.

[jukesgrrl]

But the crap performances we have to put up with on any Academy Awards show to get to the winning song is almost unbearable. I still can't get those waltzing princesses from last year out of my head and it's almost time for another show. A Wings reunion would be a supreme work of art in comparison.

[kyyletime]

Amen! :)

[3fingerbrown]

This has always been the most democratic of Oscar categories: The song doesn't have to come from a good or even profitable movie to get a nomination, and you don't have to be a Hollywood insider, or even a movie person, to be considered. So, your pet song has as good a chance as any to be nominated. If Chris Cross can win an Oscar, why can't "Love Take Me Down"? It'd be nice poetic justice for McCartney, whose "Live and Let Die" lost to "The Way We Were" in '73.

People who might not normally come to mind as Oscar winners but who, in fact, won for Best Song: Keith Carradine, Irene Cara, Isaac Hayes, Lionel Ritchie, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Melissa Etheridge.

[mheister]

Toby - A song from "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" was nominated for an Academy Award. Robin Williams song a heavily-bleeped version of it at the ceremony. Lamentably, it did not win. Best funny musical numbers in a movie since "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life", which film deserved a nod it did not receive for "Every s p e r m is sacred".

Oh, and you couldn't work a "Band on the Run" reference into your concluding paragraph??? Perhaps the jailor man and sailor Sam could let 'em in?

Haven't heard the faux Macca tune you're referencing, but if it's funny, I'm with ya brother.

[jillsond]

Are you kidding? What did you say about Newman? "Frothy ditty"? Randy Newman is a genius. "When She Loved Me" is the sweetest song evah in an animated movie.

Anyhoo, it would be really cute if your fantasy with McCartney is realized. This song isn't all that great, sounds like someone was inspired by Wings and wrote a song.

[LMPE]

I barely have any respect for Paul McCartney anymore.

[brettb3]

That's a shame. You don't even bother to give a reason.

[TurgidCaterwauling]

I can't think of a modern song writer with an equivalent body of work who hasn't written a fair number of bad to mediocre songs in addition to a body of brilliant music.

[JGatsby]

A Wing's reunion? I don't hear much in today's music to get enthused about but its not quite so bad that a Wings reunion gets me excited.

[Toby Barlow - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, I didn't mention it, but if you'd read your Nostradamus carefully you'd know that, in fact, a Wings reunion is very, very important.

[JGatsby]

Why didn't you say so? I'm always for something that will bring on the apocalypse or whatever.

[mheister]

To lift from the late George Harrison's comment once about the possibility of a Beatles reunion, there is no possibility of a Wings reunion so long as Linda McCartney insists on remaining dead.

[dannyo152]

There was a fair amount of wit and humor in the Enchanted tunes nominated last year. Oh sure, served with a head of froth, but still...

The year Phil Collins won, there was a Randy Newman song (not funny, though) that totally should have won. The one year Mr. Collins should have won, for Against All Odds, he lost to Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You." Ouch.