Neil Finn’s ‘Hobbit’ Song Shortlisted For Oscar

Neil Finn's theme song for The Hobbit has been shortlisted for an Academy Award in the Original Song category.

As theMusic.com.au predicted last month, Finn's track Song Of The Lonely Mountain has taken the first step to Oscar glory by being included on the shortlist of 75 tracks.

Also making the cut were Arcade Fire with Abraham's Daughter from The Hunger Games, Adele's James Bond theme Skyfall, The Black Keys's Baddest Man Alive from RZA's The Man With The Iron Fists, Mumford & Sons' Learn Me Right from Brave and Katy Perry's Wide Awake from her documentary Part Of Me.

Although juggernauts like Adele, Katy Perry and The Black Keys look like favourites on paper, the first instalment of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit could yet be the biggest movie of the year – which would catapult the Crowded House and Pajama Club frontman well and truly into contention.

Speaking to theMusic.com.au last month at the announcement of he and Paul Kelly's joint tour next year, Finn played down the Oscar-buzz.

“There's talk and murmurings about all sorts of things,” he admitted, “but I would not want to engage with any of that, lest I spook something.”

Of the song he said, “It was quite an interesting process, because they wanted me to imagine things from a dwarven point of view – you don't get asked to that very often. And there was a tune that already existed that they wanted me to adapt, so a lot of things were very different for me, so I spent quite a lot of time and looked at it from a few different angles.”

Other shortlisted tracks with Australian connections include the song Cosmonaut from Lawless, a film by Australian director John Hillcoat, which is credited to The Bootleggers, featuring Emmylou Harris - written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and with fellow Bad Seed Martyn Casey playing on it. Keith Urban's For You from the film Act Of Valor also appears on the list alongside Suddenly, a new song written for the film version of Les Miserables and sung by Hugh Jackman.

Following the shortlist announcement, a list of nominations will be released closer to the date of the Oscars – which next year will be hosted by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane.

And here's some he'll have to beat: