Why Over the Rainbow was Cut from The Wizard of Oz
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'Over the Rainbow', written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, has become a cultural icon since its inclusion in MGM's 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. But despite its current fame, it very nearly didn’t see the light of the day. This is the story of how Over the Rainbow was written, but also how it was nearly lost to history.
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FURTHER READING/RESEARCH
Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow (Oxford Keynotes) [Walter Frisch]: www.amazon.co....
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Hi everyone! I think I should provide a little more context for my conclusion, as there was a part of the video that I decided to cut but that would have given a musical justification for my final thoughts. Edens’ original Kansas song was inspired by Henry Bishop and John Howard Payne’s ‘Home! Sweet Home!’, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home!_Sweet_Home!) but this wasn’t the only influence this song had on the production. Herbert Stothart actually included the melody from the song throughout the orchestral score, and you can hear it most prominently at the end when Dorothy says ‘There’s no place like home…’ - at 1:03 in Delirious Escape / Delirious Escape Continued / End Title (th-cam.com/video/4uVxx4cUwmU/w-d-xo.html). But you can also hear it, played by a solo horn, at 2:35 in the same track underneath ‘Over the Rainbow’. So, for me, it feels like we have two conflicting messages - one melody, by Bishop, telling us there’s no place like home, that Kansas is where Dorothy belongs, and Arlen’s melody, whose only lyrics in the film have been about escape, telling us this is not her true home. So, my conclusion was that Over the Rainbow, that Harburg and Arlen were trying to tell us something important at the end. Anyway, this is just how I interpreted it and I just thought I would give a little more information. Let me know what you think!
Thanks for this comment, that's something that stood out for me.
My thinking about this moment is definitely different. I see it as an attempt to synthesize and reconcile those two tensions that Dorothy feels; the desire to escape the ordinary dullness and trouble of life on the one hand, and the desire for the familiar and familial on the other. At the end of the film, we're meant to empathize with her escapism, but to recognize that she belongs where she is, and that having made this journey of escape, her gray world is made brighter by the memories.
This is very much in keeping with the needs of the film industry at the time. They needed to sell something very fanciful to an audience that contained people who might have been more resistant to fantasy, the parents especially. So this narrative arc was a way to have one's cake and eat it too: a frank statement of dissatisfaction with reality, an escapist journey, culminating in a return to reality, enriched and satisfied by novelty, danger, and beauty.
We don't know the value of home and the family and everyday people we love. ...it took me awhile to figure out the other hidden yet obvious message in this film. Its when professor marvel says to the tinman.." A man is judged not by how much he loves ....but how much he/ is loved by others. " Dorothy found out from her near death experience that everyone on that farm loved her. As we all in the audience now and in the future fall in love with Dorothy and Judy Garland. That song took every important American values, set it up with gorgeousness, and lifys my sprit with its honest, most sincere performance of this gifted artist. Love the doc...was wondering who or what are tbe female chorus who sing " optumistic voices" voices. They can be heard all through tbe film and add that mystical magical fairy element in song..they are heard not seen
I don't know, maybe you're overthinking it. A perfectionist curse.
@@keithklassen5320 well there's also the fact that Dorothy is still a child, with some important years of growing up within the safe harbor of home ahead of her before she's ready to go off looking for that rainbow.
alternatively, over the rainbow is a song of longing, it's about the place she belongs. At the end, when she's back in Kansas, it plays again because now she knows Kansas is where she belongs, that the place she was looking for was there all along, so now Over the Rainbow is associated with Kansas rather than Oz because that's where her longing is
Those seeing the movie in its first run were people who were still going through the trials of The Great Depression. This song would hardly have been over their heads. It would have struck them directly in the heart.
The Great Depression was, I think letting up by 1939, though. It was still there, but nowhere near as bad as, say, in 1933, when it was supposedly at it's worse
@@chrismulwee4911 we'll be saying the same thing about Covid soon enough, give it six years, and this kind of hopefulness will be manipulating you in the popular media again. It's a small world after all.
@@Varunic219 ya but even covid at it's worse wasn't that bad, at least in the US, just kinda boring and how to swicth to online work
@@smg4reblooperd182 I'd say give it six months, but given your response, I think you'll need 4 years on this trajectory before you see what's _really_ up with the coof. And we'll have it, oh, we'll have it... Tty then 😉👌
@@Varunic219 oh I know the after math will linger I just mean just mean the main situation
Mom said everyone in the theater gasped when the door opened to munchkin land. She said it was the most magical thing any of them had ever seen.
That is so lovely!
My mom said the same thing.
It's amazing how far we've come and how we take seemingly simple things like color in our tv and movies for granted. People forget that there was a time when it was legitimately life-altering to see something like that. Thanks for sharing your mom's thoughts.
It's funny, I was a kid in the 60s and we didn't have a color TV then. So for several years I saw this film--every Thanksgiving weekend--in black and white! But Oz was still magical.. I just didn't get the part about the 'horse of a different color'. I still adore this film.
(My dad did have the soundtrack album, which was printed in color.)
Wow!!
Hard to imagine anyone watching/hearing Judy Garland's performance of that song and thinking it should be cut for time. You'd have to have a heart of stone!
It's one of the few songs that are so associated with one person it should never be covered. Another that comes to mind is Streisands Don't Rain on my Parade.
The thing that makes the Garland rendition of the song so impactful is that it came from her heart. Her mother was a nightmarish 'stage mom' by all accounts. According to Hollywood rumors she was left on the "director's couch" by here mother at age eleven for a "private" interview. Whether or not it is true, her life was not her own and she ended up looking for the other side of the rainbow in booze and drugs and never finding it.
This is a marvelous film. I worked for a couple of years at a children's hospital that had in-house movies. The Wizard of Oz was great for kids facing a serious illness since one of its themes is facing your fears and inadequacies.
Courage!
Even at age 69, no song will bring me quicker to tears than "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". I suppose it is the nostalgia and eagerly awaiting its showing every year as a little boy. I can cry now just thinking of it.
Yes, I cried hearing it during this video. And Judy had the perfect voice for it.
You even made the aspect ratio 4:3, this is great
finally a video i can watch on my ipad! hahaha jokes aside, this aspect ratio feels nostalgic
Bloody hell you're good at making these videos!
Thank you so much David!
True, he is.
This is, indeed, really well made TV.
Fuck off checkmark
You are BOTH really good at making videos, thank you!
I always wondered what the reaction of the audience was like when Dorothy opened the front door of her house and stepped out into a world of color. The beginning of the movie displayed in a sepia tone along with a two dimensional perspective was a set up for a door opening to three dimensional vibrant colors along with the star transitioning to a beautiful young girl stepping into a vastly enhanced awe inspiring new world. There must have been many gasps around the theater as the people felt they just underwent a fantastic change themselves.
You need to do an essay on early cartoon film score most Prevalently Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny.
I think you got the message of the film totally wrong,yes at the end Kansas is still the same but Dorothy isn't she has evolved and has accepted who she is and where she's from,she doesn't need the escapism in her life anymore,why would the last line of the film be..."there's no place like home!"if she still felt trapped.
I think "home" was all about the people she knew and loved, not the place.
@@wmoates6029 Well a home is not solely a location that is a simplistic definition,a home is inseparable from the people who you know who also live there,"home" in this context is the place and at the same time the people she knew.
I always saw it as hearing Somewhere Over the Rainbow wasn't at odds with what Dorothy was saying but reinforcing it. She was chasing the dream of someplace better but her place over the rainbow was right where she started. In a similar way to Sarah in Labyrinth finding a newfound appreciation for her home life after her adventures.
Agreed. The nature of the place is still the same, but the subjective experience changed.
bro thats some bs I'd be trying to get back to OZ fuck kansas
I cannot think of a better song from the 20th century. It is PERFECT! The lyrics and melody personify the mood and perspective of Dorothy. Judy's vocal is so visceral.
I was not prepared to cry on a Wednesday afternoon 😭 your videos are so consistently beautiful and moving, nice work!
"Why is the movie in black and white at the start?"
"Have you ever been to Kansas?"
Hey, it turns out there actually was a reason for that.
Also, Dorothy's Ruby Slippers were Silver Slippers in the book, but red shows up better on the screen with the color film they had back then.
You don’t film in Technicolor and costume in greyscale.
"Over The Rainbow"
Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true
Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh, why can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh, why can't I?
To me the song sings about the "inability" to fly over the rainbow. We are all prisoners of that dark and bland place called Kansas, which is a metonymy for life, and that is why we go visit places like OZ, the Grand Canyon, The Vatican, Disneyland, etc.--"to fly over the rainbow.".
One more important point. This was written in 1938, and even then the portents of Hitler's Europe were unfolding, even if not to the horrendous atrocities that would soon enough unfold.
My Grandma told me about seeing Wizard Of Oz in the theater. She said she was blown away by the special effects when the house is inside the tornado and various actors fly past the window. She also said when she first saw the scene where they meet the wizard it scared the shit out of her.
I love the Austin cameo so much, I am so ready for the alg to hit this video.
Am I right in thinking it was the adult Judy that sang the last rendition of Over the Rainbow in this video? It was a nice touch to finish.
Love the Austin McConnell cameo!
Um, no. The point of the song is that it gives Dorthy something she otherwise would not have; character growth. Because at the end she realizes that what really matters are the people in your life that love you. She thought she wanted to escape, until she did. As the old saying goes you don't know what you got until it's gone.
It's not an LGBTQ+ landmark for nothing. It's where the rainbow iconography originated.
Your videos are really in a class by themselves, and your profound love of music always come through. Bravo!
I think my late friend would be crying over this, that’s how good the documentary is.
The special effects on this video are AMAZING especially Glinda’s bubble! I don’t know what you use for editing, but it’s amazing!
I was pleasantly surprised with the content. Surmising the title was click-bait it is nice to find there was value and not sensationalism. Great documentational images with a calm, clear narration supported by relevant musical clips makes me hope to find more little 'nuggets' of information which add color to memories.
This was astounding. Beautifully done.
Thank you so much Aimee!
I am constantly shocked by the gigantic genius imbued in your videos, the quality almost seems too good for TH-cam!
A thousand years from now, people will still sing this song.
Just subbed to your channel and I love these kind of videos. The Wizard of Oz is one of the best movies ever made even if it had a rough production I still feel the magic is real. Over The Rainbow is one of the best songs of all time.
i have no idea how you manage to make all of your videos fantastic, but you have done it ONCE AGAIN. i have yet to come across another channel’s musical analysis that even contends with the ones you have made. incredible job. keep doing what you’re doing dude.
Such a beautiful story of a very very beautiful song.
I got to see "The Wizard of Oz" on the big screen when the old movie theater in my town, built in the 30s and surely ran it first run showed it in the 1980s. What a treat that was to see it in the theater I went to all the time as a little boy.
Okay so, where has this channel been? Its so amazing! Keep up the good work
Damn dude your editing is on another level holy shit. 😤
I was expecting the same old film facts already out there---that the song slowed the film down and was sung in a barnyard. But your video was SO much more than that. Kudos on your research, man. (Loved your Oz sets, too.) I remember hearing something about a tune Arlen used to whistle when he called for his dog, and that it found its way into the song ("Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far..."). Have you heard anything about this?
I was just scrolling through random videos on the TH-cam homepage and came across this one. Very well done and you have earned yourself a new subscriber!
"My dear sweet Dorothy, as you looked about the grey wash of Kansas, looking for the all the colors of the rainbow, you never thought to see that you are their rainbow. Even in the bleakest of situations we are the light that can shines for others." - The Wizard Idgarad of the land of 10,000 Lakes. ;)
7:05 I knew I recognized Austin's voice!
YES, I was thinking to myself: Wait a minute I know that voice!!
Brilliant. You are a master of video creation. Looking forward to you blowing up!
When will you do a video on the music of Conan The Barbarian? Basil Poledouris is a MASTER!
I just found your channel from the jurassic park music. And I love this channel.
This is a masterfully made video. Please keep up this approach to making content
"...and Toto following behind singing the Kansas song". Now that would be something!
This documentary had the polish and professionalism of other documentary's like the ones you see in National Geographic. This was very enjoyable to watch, and the story was wonderful. Thank you for making something worth the time ,and something worth sharing. Cheers!
Why do I sense a creeping feeling of a night demon on a mountain looming over a forlorn village to the sound of obnoxious brass and winds?
Completely charming and fully informative and entertaining. What more good can I say. Accept thank you 🙏
Amazing!
Thanks so much for your marvelous video!
This is spectacular quality, and something I am sure I will come back to multiple times, well done!
This is a great and amazing video. Thank you so much.
When I watch "The Wizard of Oz", I see "Over the Rainbow" as a beautiful song. And not much more.
However; when I hear it isolated and cut from the film, it grabs the emotional attention of people who are not
happy where they are, or who they are... and so wish to go "over the rainbow" to that place which will make them
content, happy and at peace with themselves and their surroundings.
And, in my opinion, THAT is what gives "Over the Rainbow" its iconic status and universal appeal.
10:55 I can't help but laugh a little at this dialog. It's definitely the "oh shit" moment when things are about to hit the fan, well at least disaster is evaded and the song did get into the movie.
WOW!!!! Outstanding video. Thank you!
Wizard of Oz without ‘Over the rainbow’ is like America without Abraham Lincoln.
Take them away, and they (America and Wizard of Oz) are just not finished.
Amazing editing!
Touching climax. Well done.
Fantastic video! “Over the Rainbow” has been my favorite song since I first heard at age 8 (some 66 years). I begged my piano teacher for an easy version of the song that I could learn.
1:00 : When _was_ its first broadcast? (A movie is not a broadcast. And while these days, a show-stopping musical number from a major motion picture will get played on the radio before the movie ever comes out, I don't think that that happened back then. But I could be wrong.)
This is an awesome video - thanks so much!
Its the grass is greener on the other side concept. She starts by pouring her heart out and speaking about a better place, then she experiences such place but wants to go home; then arrives home and we hear her express herself in conversation with her family while the instrumentals take a back seat to remind us that "over the rainbow" is a two way street. Her life was also an over the rainbow once she saw the otherside. It was a beautiful rewind, a mirroring of what truly is beautiful, the sepia filled Kansas shines in the instrumentals of "over the rainbow" as much as it expressed the desperate need to escape at the beginning, all circling back to show; theres no place, like Home.
Incredible, incredible video.
Great video, thank you. Loved the reading cameos too.
What a great channel this is. Keep them coming.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow is a symbolic narrative of the Great Depression.
Great video essay! Great stuff! I love these older movie gems, keep them coming!
Very well done video. Thank you.
Austin McConnell at 7:05! Woah! A familiar voice out of context jumpscare XD
Just beautiful!
This video was great I even cried in the end (:
Fun random fact: The last named mission in Super Mario 64 is called "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Pretty obviously a reference. Random I know, but it came to mind.
Our world is filled with powerful leaders who think they are somehow endowed with greater powers of wisdom, insight, and awareness of what we need. And yet we continue to learn about incomprehensible decisions that reveal just how misguided and ignorant they can be. The idea of a _Wizard of Oz_ without "Over the Rainbow" is painful; it would have been a tragic loss for the world. We are lucky that enlightened minds were there at the time to set things right.
This channel is too much underrated. Common youtube algorithm!
I Am Lucky Enough to Own this very DVD in My Almost 3000 movies I Have collected. 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄
Very touching. had tears in my eyes.
I can’t believe this song was almost placed on the cutting room floor alongside duds like “A Message from the Man on the Moon” from Day at the Races.
Considering how "Over the Rainbow" was nearly lost to history one wonders how may other great songs have been lost... and if somewhere some of them may be found again?
Outstanding. Thank you.
This is superb. Thanks for making it.
Wonderfully informative. Great narration.
Woahhhh these vids keep getting better! Outstanding as always! ❤️
Wow, so what songs have we not had the joy of hearing... That's heartbreaking to think about.
Oh man I kinda wish we could get that full 2hr cut of the film!
Very well made video!
Fascinating. The first time I've seen your channel. I've subscribed.
What a beautiful song
Again bravo! and thankyou
The thing that's so astounding to me about this song is that it's not *that* special, not on its own. I don't even like it that much in the movie. But there's a later recording by Judy that's just... indescribable. It made me cry in earnest the first time I listened to it and I still cry now, if I'm paying attention. There's just something about her voice that pulls you to it, that doesn't let you distance yourself from the emotion. That's why every re-recording falls short, in my opinion. The interpreters may be skilled singers and they might bring an interesting melody into it but it's never *as good*.
Judy Garland had a horrible life, and that second recording of hers is so powerful because she's putting all that pain into it. She desperately wanted to find that rainbow, but never could.
That was beautiful.
Very well done!
I would absolutely love to see a video about Danny Elfmans work in the original Spider-Man trilogy. I honestly think it’s the best superhero movie soundtrack ever made. Just how the music evolves is epic
You will not have to wait long….
@@ListeningIn Hyped!!!
Very nice. Thank you.
Somewhere over the rainbow plays in a different cadance. I think it's sped up to 1/4 or 1/8 time. When the mean old woman comes for Toto and in the tornado scene. I think it's in other places.
Wow, if that song had been left out, we would be living in an alternate universe where nothing is the same.
I just stumbled across your videos and I have to say, they are plain awesome! I have not found anything lately that is so informative, well written, well put-together and moving me as much as your videos. Really great stuff.
Although I think that you have many suggestions, I would love to see you take a shot on Daft Punk's Tron Legacy soundtrack. Although Daft Punk are not the typical film music composer and apparently they "only" provided synthesizer tracks, I love the soundtrack a lot and it is something special (in my eyes), combining classical music and modern electronic music. In case you are worried about the almighty YT-algorithm, here is a fallback proposal, since I didn't see an analysis of the dark knight in your videos, even though that score has been covered many times. As many others said before me: I would watch any take you do on any music. Keep the good work up, you are awesome!
Brilliant video, thank you!
I honestly think that people who like this sentiment of returning home....to your family, to your friends, to your home town,,,,have not actually spent their childhood in such a town. I grew up in a town of 2500 in a midwestern area. Just because they know you doesn't mean they like you and having EVERYBODY know you ain't that great. The restrictions and relentless push for conformity is endless. So, get sentimental if you wish..now imagine a life of baling hay or working as a clerk in the IGA (at least until the Walmart opens up 25 miles over). I can get all sentimental about "back home" but a week at Xmas makes it very cleat why I left.
Damn this was a tour de force in producing a video essay.
I love how you got austin mcconnel to do the voicing lol
The basic tune of "Over the Rainbow" goes back to the Italian opera composer Pietro Mascagni to his 1895 opera set in Scotland called "Guglielmo Ratcliff" based on a German play by Heinrich Heine -the tune occurs in the orchestral prelude (overture) to the opera.Whether or not the composer of the famous song ever heard this music is debatable and it could just be a co-incidence-people are amazed when they listen to the Mascagni piece and hear the definite melody of "Over the Rainbow" though it cuts off towards the end.
I find it funny that I picked out Austin's voice on a random video. The internet can be a small world!
....I'm not crying...it's raining today...
Hey! Love your work!
I have a suggestion, if you do not mind, and of course you can refuse or whatever since I know this is a lot of work, but do you think it would be possible to do an essay on star wars music?
And i know you did one on the movie music!
I meant, in this case, the music not composed by john williams.
How did the composers for clone wars, bad batch, rebels, and mandalorian use the preexisting themes developed by Williams, and how did they modify and develop them to suit the story and point in time? How did they make new themes that fit into the musical identity set by the movies? And just how did they build up the tension leading up to an event we already know the outcome of, ie the revenge of the sith. I know they used the imperial march liberally.
And for mando, how did they carve out a completely new identity, far from the jedi and republic and rebellion, yet keep to the spirit of star wars?
I would love a close look at Ahsoka’s theme, because she as a character has seen a lot of development and change set during literal decades, but also it is beautiful and should be known as such.
Also the clone theme. And burying the dead. And maul. Or just the entire thing, pick whichever you want or find most interesting, you know best and it’s your work!
fantastic production!!