Elton John's history with the Academy Awards almost got off to a very bad start.
It came when he wrote songs for the 1994 Disney film "The Lion King," including a sweeping ballad that he figured would be the movie's signature love song.
"I remember [then Disney chief] Jeffrey Katzenberg showing me 'The Lion King' about four weeks before it came out, and it had no 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight,'" John remembered in a conversation with TheWrap. "I was so upset, and I told him so.
"And he put it back in and it won an Oscar."
Maybe that's why the iconic pop musician can afford to be magnanimous about the rocky road that led to his current Oscar contenders, a pair of songs from the animated feature "Gnomeo & Juliet." The film took 11 years to get off the ground, and along the way it lost three or four songs that John had written.
"It died so many times and was resuscitated so many times," said John, who also produced the "Romeo and Juliet"-style story about a pair of garden gnomes from feuding yards. "Be were determined to get it made, and in the end it happened."
Also read: An Opinionated Guide to a Pretty Good Year for Oscar Songs
One of the deaths came when Disney handed the reins of its animation studio to Pixar's John Lasseter, who killed a number of projects that were in the works. And when Disney exec Dick Cook revived "Gnomeo," said John, he had one major request.
"He said he would like to hear an Elton John soundtrack of older songs as well as newer ones," John said. "Bernie Taupin and I had written five or six songs for the film, and we lost about four of them along the way. But sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.
"And I think ultimately Dick's decision was proved correct, because the film worked really well with the old songs as well."
John said he was particularly sad to lose one song, "The Sky Is Falling," which Lily Allen recorded for the film. But after a career that includes writing songs for the animated movies "The Lion King" and "The Road to Eldorado" and the stage musicals "Aida" and "Billy Elliott," he's used to songs falling by the wayside.
"It's what happens in this process," he said. "You overwrite and then you eliminate, and some of the songs that get left behind are good. You have to just take it on the chin."
The two songs that did survive, and now sit in the film alongside John classics like "Your Song" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," are "Hello Hello" and "Love Builds a Garden," both of which were entered in this year's Oscar race.
