Golden Globe Best Original Song

The Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song is an honor bestowed upon an artist who has writing or co-writing credit for a song that is particularly written for a film. The accolade is presented annually during the Golden Globe Awards ceremony by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), an organization that comprise of journalists and photographers covering the US entertainment industry for publications mainly in non-US media markets. The award recognizes and honors remarkable original film song produced by a songwriter or songwriters that helped in adding value to the film setting its mood and atmosphere and conveying its emotion to the audience thereby making the film more entertaining and appealing to them.

The Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song was first presented by the HFPA during the 19th Golden Globe Awards held in 1962 with Russian-born American film composer and conductor Dimitri Tiomkin and American lyricist Ned Washington sharing the award as its first recipients for co-writing the tragic song Town Without Pity for the 1961 American/Swiss/West German drama film bearing same title. The award was not given for the next couple of years and starting from 1965, it has been awarded every year.

Some of the all time great songs that won the award includes The Way We Were (1973) from The Way We Were co-written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman and Marvin Hamlisch; I Just Called to Say I Love You (1984) from The Woman in Red written by Stevie Wonder; Beauty and the Beast (1991) co-written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman for Beauty and the Beast; and My Heart Will Go On (1997) penned down by James Horner and Will Jennings for Titanic.

American composer, music director, arranger, conductor, and record producer Alan Menken won the award 4 times which marks as the highest number of wins in the category. He won them for Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid (shared with Ashman) in 1990; Beauty and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast (shared with Ashman) in 1992; A Whole New World from Aladdin (shared with Tim Rice) in 1993; and Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas (shared with Stephen Schwartz) in 1996. Menken is followed by Rice with three awards; and other notable artists like Ashman, Tiomkin, Washington, Carole Bayer Sager, Phil Collins, Marvin Hamlisch, Will Jennings, Elton John and Justin Paul, among others who won two awards each. In 2023, music composer, lyricist, record producer and singer M. M. Keeravaani and lyricist and playback singer Chandrabose became the first Indians to win the award for co-writing the Indian Telugu-language song Naatu Naatu for the Indian Telugu-language epic period action drama RRR.

List of Winners - Golden Globes Best Original Song