Billie Eilish & Finneas’ ‘No Time to Die’ Wins Oscar for Best Original Song

Paul Grein
·3 min read
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Billie Eilish and Finneas won an Oscar for “No Time to Die” from the James Bond film of the same name on Sunday (March 27). They are the first siblings to win in this category since Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, who won the 1964 award for “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from Mary Poppins.

“No Time to Die” is the third Bond song to win an Oscar; the first that was written by American songwriters. The first two winners, “Skyfall” and “Writing’s on the Wall,” were both written by pairs of English writers.

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Eilish, 20, is the second-youngest winner ever in the category, trailing only Markéta Irglová, who was four days shy of turning 20 when she won in February 2008 for co-writing “Falling Slowly” from Once. Eilish might have become the youngest winner ever in this category if COVID hadn’t happened and No Time to Die had come out on schedule in 2020. If that had happened, she might have won the award at the Oscars in their usual time slot in late February 2021, when she was 19 and two months.

In accepting the award, both siblings were plainly thrilled. “This is so unbelievable, I could scream,” Eilish said. She thanked Hans Zimmer, who provided the orchestral arrangement, and guitarist Johnny Marr “for taking our song and making it worthy of James Bond.”

Finneas paid a lovely compliment to their parents. “We love you as parents and as real people too.”

Oscar voters were slow to embrace songs from James Bond films, but they’ve since made up for lost time. No Time to Die is the third consecutive Bond film to yield an Oscar-winning song. It follows Skyfall (Adele’s title song, which she co-wrote with Paul Epworth) and Spectre (Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall,” which he co-wrote with Jimmy Napes).

Eilish performs “No Time to Die” on the film’s soundtrack. The song won a Grammy for best song written for visual media in March 2021.

“No Time to Die” was the highest-charting Hot 100 hit of this year’s best original song nominees. It debuted and peaked at No. 16 in February 2020.

The other nominees in the category were “Be Alive” from King Richard (music and lyric by Dixson and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter); “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto (music and lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda); “Down to Joy” from Belfast (music and lyric by Van Morrison); and “Somehow You Do” from Four Good Days (music and lyric by Diane Warren).

All of the songs except “Down to Joy” were performed on the Oscar telecast. Eilish and Finneas performed “No Time to Die,” Beyoncé performed “Be Alive,” Sebastián Yatra performed “Dos Oruguitas,” and Reba McEntire performed “Somehow You Do.”

Miranda would have become an EGOT if he had won. At 42, he has plenty of time to join that elite club, which currently consists of 16 members.

The 2022 Oscars returned to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood after being shifted to Los Angeles’ Union Station last year because of the pandemic.

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