This song won the Academy award (2008) for best original song seen in the movie ‘Once‘. I reviewed Once in Friday’s Finest September 2019. I wrote, ‘It’s very serendipitous how I see Bob Dylan in Sydney 2001 the night before he received his Oscar for Things Have Changed and then saw Glen Hansard in 2007 open for Bob in Melbourne and soon thereafter, he wins an Oscar for Falling Slowly in Once. What are the chances of that?‘
You can find more information about the movie at that page.
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are about the most unlikely duo you could think of achieving chemistry in a movie, let alone winning an Oscar together. The song was composed while Once was already in production. As seen below, in the movie, they play the song in the Waltons Music shop across from the George’s Street Arcade in Dublin. Irglova said in her Academy Award acceptance speech: “This song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are…“
Falling Slowly as a stand-alone piece is very nice, but it works much better as seen in the movie in part with the rest. I haven’t seen Once for a long time, but I remember having vivid dreams about it soon after I saw it. It’s a very special indie movie for mine and has ‘the feel’ of a documentary sporting a scrappy, un-embellished naturalism. It’s adorable and hugely underrated. The movie has since been made into award winning musical.
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Just did a rendition of this for SATB choir. Beautiful song, beautiful movie. Kind of sad my teenagers hadn’t heard of it – the movie nor the musical…
Hey Reely, I changed my browser to Brave away from Chrome and I can’t sign-in to messages on WordPress like before. I know your frustrations about what young people tune into – you only have to see what’s popular on Netflix for confirmation of that.
Well done on trying to expose this music! Do you have any of your renditions available on You Tube? I get you got my comments on the Irishman? You nailed it.
Gotcha. No worries. We didn’t get a chance to record it, and the live version has too many background noises, but the experience was a positive one, and they liked the song.
That’s the most important thing that you left an impression. You must be very talented.
There are good years, and there are forgettable years, but 19 years teaching music must mean something is working 🙂
Wow, that’s something else. Such a long time! I can’t imagine the impact you have had on young people’s lives.