Oscar-Nominated Top Ten: The Bare Necessities (#7)

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Continuing on through the countdown of my favorite songs that were nominated for the “Best Original Song” Oscar, I also continue through the Disney section. It wasn’t a deliberate choice to put all the songs from Disney movies together in one fell swoop, it just happened that way. Here’s another one from the long list of Disney song nominees. #7: The Bare Necessities - Baloo and Mowgli An interesting thing, to me anyway. This was written by Terry Gilkyson, who had the hit in the 50s with “Marianne” and wrote Dean Martin’s big hit “Memories Are Made of This.” His daughter is Eliza Gilkyson, a singer/songwriter with two Grammy awards to her credit, and his son is Tony Gilkyson, who was a member of the cowpunk band Lone Justice. So there was plenty of talent to go around in the family. As for the film, well, it’s a Disney adaptation of a Rudyard Kipling book from 1894 that had been a movie (live-action) once before (a quick aside for @TheHorse ‘s amusement: Sabu, the subject of the John Prine song “Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone,” played Mowgli in the 1942 live-action film), but with animation and great music (mostly from the Sherman Brothers) the 1967 adaptation was a big hit. The song lost to another “kids film” tune, “Talk to the Animals” from Doctor Dolittle. That movie had some good songs, too, but I’m more likely to sing this one out of the blue. The Bare Necessities Written by Terry Gilkyson Recorded by Phil Harris (Baloo) and Bruce Reitherman (Mowgli) From The Jungle Book, 1967 You find out you can live without it: