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Two fresh comments from David Carr‘s Carpetbagger blog regarding the Oscar fortunes of “Falling Slowly” (all punctuation, etc., in the original): “I was lucky enough to have been peripherally engaged with the shooting experience of the Irish film ‘once’. The song contested, ‘falling slowly’ was written for the film, albeit a number of years before the film began actually shooting, but without going into long winded specifics I can assure all concerned that I was witness to the truth in this ridiculous matter. The song was written for the film. I have read alan’s material that his link provides. His presupposition that doubt should be cast upon the authenticity of the songs authors is bizzare to say the least. Certainly the fabric of his article has no argument to support his doubt. It is quite obvious that the true element of concern to the Academy in this issue is the fact that Glen Hansard had the gall to preform his composition before the motion pictures eventual release. Discussions that strive to debate the genesis of the song’s authorship are facile and to this observers mind without any merit or reason. I truly hope this great event for contemporary independent cinema is given the chance to gain a small degree of the recognition it truly deserves on the hallowed stage of the Academy, free from the impotent claims of falsehood of the aforementioned journalist and his ilk… — Posted by Paula R.” And: “The song Falling Slowly had been banging around Frames gigs for a couple of years in different guises and Glen said at these gigs that the song had been written for a film that his Friend John had written that at the time had been called Buskers and the name was then changed to Once. Glen has always stated that that particular song had been written for the film project his friend was working on, and this was back in 2002, about the same time that Glen and Mar started writing music together.
— Posted by Toni”