You accomplished something unprecedented in Oscar lore; three of the new songs from the film were Academy Award nominees for Best Song…my pick for best song was “Listen.”
“Listen” was the song that took the most time and hard work because we needed to fashion something in the musical vernacular of Beyoncé while at the same time adhere to what the movie needed story-wise. That song took a while to write because, generally speaking, I don’t write Beyoncé songs. I teamed up with Scott Cutler, who did a lot of musical innovation on the song…and Anne Preven, who wrote the lyrics. We would show Beyoncé what we were doing and she would ask for maybe a little of this and a little of that. It was a group effort and a lot of fun.
http://www.americansongwriter.com/2007/05/henry-krieger-the-dream-maker/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyonce Knowles May Get Half An Oscar
February 23rd, 2007 10:22am EST
Beyonce Knowles stands to pick up half an Oscar if songwriter Scott Cutler wins gold for Best Song on Sunday - he'll cut the statuette down the middle.
Oscar rules limit the amount of nominees in the Best Song category and, as one of five writers credited with Dreamgirls hit Listen, Knowles missed out on a nod.
But Cutler insists the singer/actress won't be left out of he wins gold.
He says, "Beyonce helped that along a lot - little lifts in the melody, little lifts in the song that we hadn't thought of. She just kept sending back ideas, thoughts, what she wanted.
"I'll cut my Oscar in the middle and give her half."
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2007/02/23/beyonce_knowles_may_get_half_an_oscar