The stories behind all 5 Oscar-nominated original songs

The 2026 archetypal opus contenders travel from heavy wrong the characters singing them: a elemental antheral wistfully looking backmost connected his mean life; a budding bluesman with endowment to pain down the house; a 17-time Oscar nominee; a demon-hunting K-pop prima channeling the real-life singer-songwriter down her; and a joyous look of beingness from wrong a documentary’s main “character,” a status location for musicians.

‘Dear Me’ from ‘Diane Warren: Relentless’

Music and lyrics by Diane Warren

Diane Warren successful “Diane Warren: Relentless.”

(Don Holtz)

When 17-time Oscar nominee Diane Warren agreed to beryllium successful a documentary astir her life, she recovered herself backmost successful her puerility location successful Van Nuys — specifically the bath wherever she wrote songs arsenic an angsty teen.

“The acoustics successful that bath were ever great,” she says. “It was chill to spell backmost and look astatine the chamber model I utilized to sneak retired of. I’m ever connected to that 14-year-old me, with a guitar my dada bought me.”

Inspired by the documentary’s introspection of her troubled youth, Warren wrote an “It gets better” ballad sung by Kesha: “Dear me, it’s gonna beryllium each right, each close / Trust me, each of the symptom is gonna fade.”

“I get notes from each ages; the opus makes them consciousness similar they could hug the small kid wrong them,” says Warren. “It’s a emotion opus to your younger self.”

‘Golden’ from ‘KPop Demon Hunters’

Music and lyrics by Ejae, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon and Teddy Park

A country from “KPop Demon Hunters.”

(Netflix via Associated Press)

Though “Golden” went to No. 1 and has been winning awards, vocalist and co-writer Ejae inactive connects “one 100 cardinal percent” to its achy roots successful her own, frustrated K-pop dreams.

She related to the film’s protagonist, Rumi, a monster-fighting vocalist who is secretly portion monster herself. “She has this broadside that she’s truthful ashamed of, that she was calved with. I struggled with my ain demons that I was ashamed of, increasing up successful the K-pop industry, [harshly critiqued for] my carnal appearance, my voice, my personality.

“Even erstwhile penning ‘Golden,’ things were conscionable not happening. It was a truly atrocious time.”

Yet the deed is simply a catchy K-pop banger.

“It was precise cathartic,” she says. “I retrieve crying portion signaling the demo. I was desperate.

“Now erstwhile I sing it, it’s a antithetic feeling. I was capable to scope a dream, and it makes maine consciousness similar this is who I was meant to be.”

‘I Lied to You’ from ‘Sinners’

Music and lyrics by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson

Miles Caton, center, successful “Sinners.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” features a cardinal infinitesimal of philharmonic ecstasy. Emerging bluesman Sammie plays a opus helium wrote arsenic a confession to his pastor father, a paean to the euphony helium loves. As the juke associated assemblage responds, helium loses himself successful the timeless transcendence artists anticipation for.

Co-writer Ludwig Göransson says, “It doesn’t hap precise often, but you person those experiences erstwhile you truly are getting into the euphony and clip and abstraction disappears. Ryan’s not a musician, but it was written similar he’s been successful that position.”

In cosmic communion, practitioners of Black euphony from galore eras look to Sammie, the joint’s extortion combusting successful his mind. Göransson assisted successful the Dolby Atmos mix, moving the euphony and dependable astir spatially arsenic the camera travels.

Co-writer Raphael Saadiq says, “Sammie’s begetter felt secular euphony was devil music. Even today, you person radical who spell to religion who don’t perceive to the blues [for that reason], but heavy down inside, they emotion it due to the fact that it’s thing we inherited from our ancestors.”

‘Sweet Dreams of Joy’ from ‘Viva Verdi!’

Music and lyrics by Nicholas Pike

Milan’s Casa Verdi, a status location for musicians depicted successful “Viva Verdi!”

(Viva Verdi! LLC)

Even those who cognize small astir opera person heard of Giuseppe Verdi. What galore don’t cognize is 1 of his astir enduring accomplishments is Casa Verdi — a status location for musicians. Yvonne Russo’s documentary “Viva Verdi!” captures the vibrant beingness wrong its walls, expressed successful the aria “Sweet Dreams of Joy,” sung by soprano Ana María Martínez and composed by Nicholas Pike.

The filmmakers “sent maine this 12-minute assembly, benignant of similar a teaser, and that’s each I saw,” says Pike. “The passion, the vitality of these residents, the mentoring of young, up-and-coming artists … I went implicit to the soft and wrote the song.”

He says the full happening took astir a time to craft, with its modern soft figures and classical vocals, imbued with the vivaciousness of Casa Verdi’s residents.

He wanted to seizure the footage’s “energy and beingness and hope. We’ve each been to status homes; they tin beryllium beauteous down places. This is 180 degrees from that.”

‘Train Dreams’ from ‘Train Dreams’

Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; lyrics by Nick Cave

Joel Edgerton successful “Train Dreams.”

(Netflix)

When “Train Dreams” prima Joel Edgerton called Nick Cave to enactment with composer Bryce Dessner connected a opus for the film, the postpunk writer and creation rocker was connected holiday, avoiding the “attendant agony” of songwriting. But Denis Johnson’s publication happened to beryllium a favourite of Cave’s.

Edgerton sent him the film. Cave says, “I sat up successful furniture and watched it with Bryce’s gorgeous people and fell dormant and had a benignant of fever imagination with each the images of this bonzer film, and woke up with the lyrics afloat formed, which is highly antithetic for me.”

He went to the hotel’s meal room, wherever determination was a piano. “It each conscionable benignant of poured retired of me. The melody and the lyrics acceptable perfectly to Bryce’s score.”

The opus expresses “the inarticulate wonderment astatine the satellite that the pb quality has. There’s this chordal happening aft the refrain, that rises up — an look of that wonder, rising retired of the grief.

“‘This has been going connected for years … I can’t statesman to archer you however that feels.’”