Once Monday, December 15, 2008
On 24 February 2008, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová were elevated to indie superhero status winning the Academy Award for best original song, beating out Oscar veterans Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. Irglová, though initially ushered off the stage before giving her acceptance speech, dedicated the award to all independent artists and musicians who struggle to achieve their dreams.
The soundtrack for Once has been making waves in indie circles since the summer of 2007, though Hal Leonard has only now released the piano/vocal/guitar songbook. Featuring all 13 songs from the original soundtrack including: the Oscar winning “Falling Slowly”, the striking “If You Want Me”, and the driving force of “When Your Mind’s Made Up”, this release is long overdue and well worth your attention. And check out the film if you haven’t already. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said “[Once] may well be the best music film of our generation”. I think he is right.
Once – song list
- All The Way Down
- Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy
- Fallen From The Sky
- Falling Slowly
- Gold
- The Hill
- If You Want Me
- Leave
- Lies
- Once
- Say It To Me Now
- Trying To Pull Myself Away
- When Your Mind’s Made Up
* Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová now perform under the name The Swell Season. They have just finished a tour of Europe and North America and will be setting out again in January for a series of dates in Japan, Korea, and Australia. As of this writing, all but three of these shows have sold out.