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Sunday 22 February sees the 81st Academy Awards ceremony take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Amidst the dizzying grandeur of the occasion, it's all too easy to forget that it's not all about which actress bursts into tears during her acceptance speech, or how many times Mickey Rourke says 'fuck'. There are awards for music too.

While this year the Best Original Song category sees compositions from WALL-E and Slumdog Millionaire go toe-to-toe, we thought it was time to salute some of gems that, despite their brilliance, will forever be also-rans in the annals of Oscar night history.

Without further ado, here are the five Oscar-nominated songs that deserved to win, but didn't:

Elliott Smith – Miss Misery

Elliott Smith's delicate contribution to the soundtrack of Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting was nominated in 1998.

Beaten by Celine Dion's grandiloquent Titanic theme, My Heart Will Go On, Smith was gracious in defeat. Finding the experience of performing live at the ceremony somewhat surreal, he commented: "I wouldn't want to live in that world, but it was fun to walk around on the moon for a day."

The Bare Necessities

1968 saw this classic from Disney's The Jungle Book – sung by Phil Harris as Baloo and Bruce Reitherman as Mowgli – pipped to the post by Talk To The Animals from Doctor Dolittle. Talk To The Animals? Talk to the hand, more like…

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