“Over the Rainbow” has been highly regarded as one of the greatest songs of all time since its debut in the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz (based on Lyman Frank Baum’s book of the same name). Judy Garland, the woman who popularized the song to begin with, made several other recordings of the song after singing it in The Wizard of Oz itself. The American Film Institute declared it to be the best film song in history as per their “100 Years…100 Songs” list.
At the beginning of the movie, Dorothy Gale (Garland) is told to find some place where she won’t get into mischief, after an incident involving her dog, Toto, and Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), who is later seen as the Wicked Witch of the West. The actual movie version of the song begins with a flowing set of subdued strings and woodwinds, before Garland sings the opening stanza: “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high…”
Throughout the song, Garland’s vocals convey the mood of the lyrics in a succinct and luxurious manner. The song focuses upon Dorothy’s desire to find a place where things are different from the real world. As the song progresses, the orchestra compliments her performance with ascending and descending string flourishes. This is best represented during the bridge, particularly after the line “…when the clouds are far behind me.” Finally, after the final refrain, we hear the orchestra reprising the bridge with birds tweeting in the background, and Garland concludes with: “If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can’t I?”
Not that this matters, but “Over the Rainbow” almost ended up becoming part of what some people call “the cutting room floor;” that is, certain scenes, musical numbers or other media pertaining to the creation of a film, album, video game, etc. don’t make the final cut of the project. After previewing The Wizard of Oz, Louis B. Mayer, one of the founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Mervyn LeRoy didn’t feel that having Garland sing in a barnyard was a good idea, especially considering she was an MGM star. Moreover, the song itself had a lower vocal range and slower tempo than most other songs for family-oriented pictures did. Thus, OTR was excised from the picture, but was eventually restored when Arthur Freed insisted on keeping the song in the film.
At the 1940 Academy Awards, “Over the Rainbow” was voted the Best Original Song of 1939 after having almost been subject to becoming an outtake. The score for The Wizard of Oz took home an Oscar for Best Original Score over scores such as that of Max Steiner for Gone with the Wind; the latter had gone on to win a total of 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1939.
As Ms. Garland herself later stated, “Over the Rainbow” is a song that symbolizes dreams and wishes, and in essence, it seamlessly connects with them. No wonder the song won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and was eventually voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame!
Other renditions of the song I’ve heard include the ones by Il Divo and especially Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole.
