{"id":1040785,"date":"2026-09-03T12:27:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1040785\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:27:24","slug":"david-byrne-pens-oscar-qualifying-song-for-musk-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1040785\/","title":{"rendered":"David Byrne Pens Oscar-Qualifying Song for ‘Musk’ Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDavid Byrne<\/a> wrote a song about the world\u2019s richest man.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Talking Heads frontman wrote and performed an original song for \u201cMusk<\/a>,\u201d Alex Gibney<\/a>\u2018s sprawling documentary reckoning with Elon Musk<\/a>, Variety can exclusively reveal. Titled \u201cLet Me Sell You a Dream,\u201d the track plays within the 235-minute film and arrives as an Oscar-qualifying entry in the best original song race.<\/p>\n

\n\tByrne wrote the song with the documentary\u2019s composer Daniel Pemberton, the Oscar-nominated musician behind \u201cSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse\u201d and \u201cThe Trial of the Chicago 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was thrilled when David agreed to write (with our composer Daniel Pemberton) and perform the final song in the film,\u201d Gibney says. \u201cI am a huge fan of his. My wife and I were at the Pantages for the filming of \u2018Stop Making Sense,\u2019 so I sensed that he would find a musical way into what the film is trying to say. And he did. \u2018Let Me Sell You a Dream\u2019 is kick-ass. And, in writing the lyrics, David dug deep into the sayings of Musk himself to get to \u2018extremely hard core,\u2019 foot-tapping sardonic poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Shervin Lainez<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Byrne, the lyrics required little invention. \u201cA thrill to collaborate with Pemberton and get invited to do this as a fan of Gibney\u2019s films,\u201d he says. \u201cI asked for good quotes from the Martian, and found more of them online. I\u2019m sure he loves dropping these wild statements, and those became the lyrics. All his own words. No editorializing. Straight from the man\u2019s mouth to mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Byrne, the collaboration reopens a door he last walked through nearly four decades ago. He won the Academy Award for best original score for \u201cThe Last Emperor\u201d in 1988, sharing the honor with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su. A nomination for \u201cLet Me Sell You a Dream\u201d would mark his first return to the Oscar race since. Pemberton earned a best original song nod in 2021 for \u201cHear My Voice,\u201d co-written with Celeste for \u201cThe Trial of the Chicago 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe song will be entered for best original song at the 2027 Oscars by way of the film\u2019s theatrical run. Bleecker Street releases \u201cMusk\u201d in U.S. theaters on Oct. 16, a berth that clears the category\u2019s eligibility requirements.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarly buzz surrounding the film, described in some quarters as \u201cscathing\u201d and billed by Gibney himself as a \u201cdefinitive and unvarnished examination\u201d of the businessman, has been strong. \u201cMusk\u201d world premieres out of competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 8 before continuing to the Toronto International Film Festival. At just shy of four hours, it stands among the most ambitious nonfiction portraits of Gibney\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney first revealed in March 2023 that he had begun work on the documentary and was \u201cmany months\u201d into production. Musk responded to news of the project on his X\/Twitter account by predicting it would be \u201ca hit-piece.\u201d Gibney fired back on the same platform, asking \u201chow would you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney directs and produces \u201cMusk,\u201d joined by Jessie Deeter and Erin Edeiken for Jigsaw Productions, Dana O\u2019Keefe for Double Agent, Joey Marra and Zhang Xin for Closer Media and Anonymous Content\u2019s Nick Shumaker and Jessica Grimshaw. Ronan Farrow and Lawrence Wright round out the producing team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Byrne wrote a song about the world\u2019s richest man. The Talking Heads frontman wrote and performed an…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1040786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[383918,37887,66,171,53,2539,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1040785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alex-gibney","tag-david-byrne","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-musk","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117207109959214177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1040786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}