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First they blanked the Boss, and now the Academy Awards have earned a protest from another veteran rocker, British singer Peter Gabriel, who has announced he won't be performing Down to Earth, the theme song from Wall-E on the Oscars telecast.

Earlier controversy about the best-song category focused on the exclusion of Bruce Springsteen's The Wrestler from the movie of the same name. Springsteen won a Golden Globe for the song.

Gabriel's decision to withdraw from the show is a result of producers' attempts to stem declining ratings for the telecast by keeping things shorter and faster. On a video on his website, www.petergabriel.com, the singer, who turned 59 Friday, announced that producers had asked him to cut his song down to just "60 to 65 seconds" and include it as part of a medley with the two other nominated songs, Jai Ho and O Saya, both from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack.

Gabriel's Down to Earth, an inspirational song co-written with composer Thomas Newman, which runs during the closing credits of animated feature Wall-E, is six minutes long. Down to Earth won a Grammy last week as best motion-picture song.

"I'm an old fart and it's not going to do me any harm to make a little protest," Gabriel said in his video.

He said he will still attend the Oscars because, "It's a fun adventure."

In his place, Gabriel said he hopes the Soweto Gospel Choir would perform the shortened version of the song.

Gabriel described the decision to chop down the songs into a medley as " a bit unfortunate. ... The songwriters, even though they're a small part of the filmmaking process, we still work bloody hard and I think deserve a place in the ceremony as well."