Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles over this
weekend, and Song Of The Year is one of the most coveted prizes. Win this, and you join a
hallowed hall featuring songs from only the most respected songwriters of the modern era: The
Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Elton John and, er, The Doobie Brothers (well, it was the end of the
Seventies). The Grammys recognition of the greatest song of the year is a little more complicated
than most awards. Song Of The Year rewards the songwriters who wrote and composed the song,
but the awards also have Record Of The Year, a prize that goes to the singer and production team.
Last year, This Is America by Childish Gambino won the Song Of The Year award, this year the
nominations are:
Always Remember Us This Way (Lady Gaga)
Bad Guy (Billie Eilish)
Bring My Flowers Now (Tanya Tucker)
Hard Place (H.E.R.)
Lover (Taylor Swift)
Norman F***ing Rockwell (Lana Del Rey)
Someone You Loved (Lewis Capaldi)
Truth Hurts (Lizzo)
For 60 years the Song Of The Year category has rewarded songs that have become part of our
aural history. It’s also thrown up some mystifying decisions too. Ahead of the ceremony this year,
here’s BBC Music’s potted history of the the Song Of The Year award in 14 facts. [Note: the years
cited are those in which the songs were released and were awarded for, not the year the
ceremony took place, which is the following year.]
The first Song Of The Year was in Italian
The US music industry is big and broad enough to have overwhelmingly swelled the ranks of Song
Of The year winners. But when the category kicked off in 1959, the Grammy Awards judges gave
the prize to Domenico Modugno’s Volare. The song had already been Italy’s entry into the
Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 and spent five weeks at the top of the Billboard charts, turning
Modugno into a household name. Modugno, incidentally, later became a member of parliament in
Italy and an outspoken critic of Chilean dictator August Pinochet – so much so that he was denied
entry to Chile to play a concert.
Doobie Bother
Jimmy Webb wasn’t the only artist to enjoy a double nomination. The Doobie Brothers’ Michael
McDonald also found himself up for the award twice in the same year, though with two different
writing partners. Studio Doobie Lester Abrams co-wrote the single Minute By Minute with
McDonald, but a place on the podium was assured thanks to the latter’s song with Kenny Loggins,
What A Fool Believes.
Illustrious omissions
Given that the Grammy’s have a public reputation of largely rewarding commercial rather than
critical success, it’s odd that several of the pop world’s biggest artists have never been recognised
– or even nominated. The Rolling Stones, Madonna, David Bowie and Queen have never even
been nominated, while Prince’s one nomination was for Sinead O’Connor’s version of Nothing
Compares To You.
Beautiful day for U2
U2, on the other hand, were nominated in 1987 for I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,
though the Linda Ronstadt/James Ingram duet Somewhere Out There ultimately proved the
winner. But U2’s day would come in the 2000s, with a double whammy five years apart. Beautiful
Day – widely regarded as something of a commercial return to form after the dance rock antics
half a decade earlier – took the honours for 2000, and five years later they followed it up with
another for Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own. Some things truly do come to those who
wait. for U2