1992 was not only a banner year for movies, it was also a banner year for movie music – more than the Academy Award category for Best Song could adequately capture with only five nominations. They were:

“Beautiful Maria of My Soul” from The Mambo Kings – Music by Robert Kraft; Lyrics by Arne Glimcher

“Friend Like Me” from Aladdin – Music by Alan Menken; Lyrics by Howard Ashman (posthumous nomination)

“I Have Nothing” from The Bodyguard – Music by David Foster; Lyrics by Linda Thompson

“Run to You” from The Bodyguard – Music by Jud Friedman; Lyrics by Allan Rich

“A Whole New World” from Aladdin – Music by Alan Menken; Lyrics by Tim Rice)

That’s all – five songs covering three movies from the year. What else could have been nominated? Below is one idea:

The 1992 film Pure Country starred country music sensation George Strait as a fictional country singer falling in love. The film itself did decent business – a $15 million gross on a $10 million budget – but lightning didn’t strike the way The Bodyguard did for Whitney Houston.

Except it sort of did. The film’s soundtrack sold six million copies, making it Strait’s most successful album. The big song on the album was the love ballad “I Cross My Heart,” written by two major songwriting vets, Steve Dorff and Eric Kaz, which steadily climbed the country charts all the way to number one during the fall of 1992.

The soundtrack had other hits, too – “Heartland,” which opens the film and “When Did You Stop Loving Me,” which was later recorded by George Jones on his 1998 album “It Don’t Get Any Better Than This.” But “I Cross My Heart” is a worthy contender for inclusion in this category.

By the way, 1992 was a big year for Isabel Glasser, the female lead that Strait serenades in Pure Country; she was also in the Mel Gibson romance Forever Young, which also starred one of this year’s acting nominees, Jamie Lee Curtis.

This is part of an ongoing series in which I look back at some of the forgotten movie music of 1992.