Max's Musings

Over the Rainbow

Over the Rainbow

The song of the century, at least according to a poll conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America. But did you know that the song almost never made it into The Wizard of Oz?

Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg had been hired to write the music and lyrics, respectively, for the movie. Arlen isn't exactly a household name, but you've heard of his songs, like "Stormy Weather" or "That Old Black Magic." Their job included writing a ballad for Judy Garland to sing before she's whisked off to Oz--something catchy like the previous year's hit, "Sometime My Prince Will Come." They finished all the other music for the movie, but the ballad wouldn't come. Then, one day, feeling ill and stopping outside Schaum's drug store on Sunset Boulevard, the Muse hit and Arlen had the melody.

But the song still almost didn't make it to the movie. Louis B. Mayer, the head of the studio, hated it and thought that it slowed the movie down. He ordered it cut from the film. Fortunately for everyone, Arthur Freed, who was an uncredited associate producer on the movie, said, "The song stays or I go." Mayer replied, “Let the boys have the damn song. Put it back in the picture. It can’t hurt.” The rest, as they say, is history.

This became Garland's signature song; eventually she included in every concert or recital she gave. She varied the pitch, the tempo, the tembre of her voice, finding endless nuances in the music and the lyrics. While she included it in every performance, she almost always made the audience demand it before letting her leave the stage.

The song itself is beautiful, but so are the lyrics. The two components work together to give hope to the hopeless. They sing a promise for the troubled, a promise of a time when clouds are far behind us and when troubles melt like lemon drops. In the sixties, gay people were just emerging from the darkness of the closet, and this song became an unlikely anthem for liberation. It can't be entirely a coincidence that the day after Garland's death the Stonewall riots took place, where gay people stood up to police harrassment.

This is another song that countless artists have covered. Garland herself had many different performances. One of my personal favorite covers of the song is Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's blending of "Rainbow" with "What a Wonderful World."

Some Links.
                                                 
Clip from Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland singing Over the Rainbow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU

                                                 
Lyrics
https://bpo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Somewhere-Over-the-Rainbow-Lyrics.pdf...

                                                 
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's mix of Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Ooxpz0Eqk&list=RDU-Ooxpz0Eqk&start_radio=1&rv=...