Mike’s Favorite Original Songs of the Decade: #179 – “Still Alive,” from Paul Williams: Still Alive

179. “Still Alive,” from Paul Williams: Still Alive

This was a trend in the middle of the decade — documentaries about songwriters who contributed a song to their soundtracks. This one in particular is a documentary about what happened to Paul Williams, who wrote dozens of famous film songs in the 70s, including the entire Bugsy Malone soundtrack and “The Rainbow Connection,” and even acted in stuff like Smokey and the Bandit. And then he just disappeared for like 25, 30 years. And the documentary is about what happened to him during all that time, and he contributes this song to it, which is kind of like the real life version of that Al Pacino song from Danny Collins we featured a ways back on the list. It’s nice.