Oscar Winner Predictions: Best Original Song

The competition: “Coming Home” (Country Strong), “If I Rise” (127 Hours), “I See the Light” (Tangled), “We Belong Together” (Toy Story 3)

Previous winners: “The Weary Kind” (Crazy Heart), “Jai Ho” (Slumdog Millionaire), “Falling Slowly” (Once), “I Need To Wake Up” (An Inconvenient Truth), “It’s Hard Out There For A Pimp” (Hustle & Flow), “Al otro lado del rio” (The Motorcycle Diaries)
Who should win: “I See the Light” or “We Belong Together,” though they’re all great
Who will win: Without Cher in the race, this category is hardly all sewn up. The frontrunner, however, is Randy Newman, who lost in this race for his tunes in the first two “Toy Story” films and likely won’t lose this time around. Newman has only once out of nineteen nominations, for “Monsters Inc,” so I’m fairly confident that this will net him his second win. Another past nominee is actually an eight-time winner, Alan Menken, who co-wrote “I See The Light” and has won for classic songs like those from “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin.” A.R. Rahman, one of the writers of “If I Rise,” won in this category two years ago for “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire.” Also in the running is one of the songs from “Country Strong.” Technically, anything could win here, but I think “We Belong Together” will come out ahead.