Over The Rainbow Lyrics – Wizard Of Oz, The

Song Overview

Song Credits

• Featured: — (solo performance)
• Producer: Bradley Flanagan, Marilee Bradford
• Composer: Harold Arlen
• Lyricist: E. Y. “Yip” Harburg
• Conductor / Orchestration: Murray Cutter, George Stoll, Herbert Stothart
• Release Date: September 1, 1939
• Genre: Classic Hollywood ballad, Traditional-Pop standard, Show-tune
• Instruments: Vocal, strings, woodwinds, muted brass, harp, celesta
• Label: Decca Records (studio cast single)
• Mood: Wistful, hopeful, homespun
• Length: 2 min 46 s
• Track #: 1 on many compilations
• Language: English
• Album (select): The Wizard of Oz (OST); later Over the Rainbow – The Very Best of Judy Garland
• Music style / meter: Rubato ballad in slow 4/4; predominantly iambic lines
• Copyrights ©: 1939 Leo Feist, Inc. / EMI Feist Catalog Inc.

Song Meaning and Annotations

I still remember the first time that gentle octave leap floated out of the cinema speakers: hope seemed to lift the room itself. “Over the Rainbow” is more than a pretty set of song words—it’s an unhurried prayer wrapped in Technicolor. Musically, Harold Arlen slips from a naïve major key into a yearning seventh, making Dorothy’s dream feel both fragile and attainable; lyrically, Yip Harburg threads everyday diction (“lullaby,” “lemon drops”) into almost biblical longing. In just thirty-two bars, Garland turns a Kansas farmhouse into a spiritual launch-pad.

The musical-version lineage is almost as storied as the film itself. The 1942 Muny stage adaptation kept “Over the Rainbow” as its emotional spine, letting Dorothy sing it under an Oz-sky scrim and a full pit orchestra. Subsequent revivals—from Toronto’s 2011 Andrew Lloyd Webber production to countless high-school stagings—make the ballad a hinge between sepia Kansas realism and emerald fantasy. Even Wicked (2003) ricochets off its melodic shadow: Glinda’s “Thank Goodness” quotes the rainbow interval in sly reverse, a wink to audiences who can’t forget the original.

Structurally, the song’s A-A-B-A form feels like Dorothy’s own arc: two verses of pure yearn, a turbulent bridge (“Someday I’ll wish upon a star…”) that leaps a ninth, then the return home—only to end with an open question: “Why, oh, why can’t I?” It is a lyrical Möbius strip; the wish never quite resolves, forever re-inviting us back to the dream.

Verse 1

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Nostalgia and nursery-rhyme simplicity—yet the melody vaults an octave on the very first word, as though the hope itself needs altitude.

Bridge

Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me

The bridge modulates upward, a compositional tornado mirroring Dorothy’s own. Orchestral strings swirl, celesta glints like stray stardust.

Verse 3 / Outro

The final repetition reverses the question: birds can cross the rainbow, so why not a farm girl? On screen, Garland’s eyes flicker—a micro-acting masterclass—hinting she suspects the answer yet sings anyway.

Annotations

The song opens with a vivid picture of longing:

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.”

From the start, Dorothy imagines a place both ideal and perhaps unreachable, a vision that contrasts sharply with the black-and-white Kansas where she sings.

The word “over” can mean beyond — forever out of reach — yet “above” leaves room for possibility. That tension mirrors every child’s first taste of hope.

Lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Harold Arlen, first-generation Jewish Americans, tap into the dreams heard in Yiddish lullabies. In pre-war Europe three movements pulled Jewish hearts: Communism, Zionism and Americanism — the “goldene medina,” a land

“where skies are blue and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

This song quietly embraces the last of those yearnings.

Harburg’s Social Conscience

Harburg’s lifelong activism shaped the lyric. From the Depression anthem “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” to 1947’s Finian’s Rainbow and a 1950 blacklist, he kept searching for the rainbow’s other side for everyone else.

Even the gentle reassurance

“dreams that you dare to dream”

hides a warning. What dreams are too bold? Too presumptuous? Dorothy’s hopes — success at school, harmony at home, first love — echo the faint optimism of Jews left in Europe as darkness gathered.

Wishing and Lullabies

A year after The Wizard of Oz came Disney’s Pinocchio and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Both songs ride an ancient ritual: wish on the brightest evening star or a falling one. In Dorothy’s mind, she will

“wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me.”

Daydream and reality mingle until they trade places.

The childlike image of “lemon drops” melting in the mouth bridges adult despair and childhood fantasy, while

“bluebirds fly”

links back to Noah’s dove and forward to Harburg’s symbol of happiness.

Shadows of 1939

The rainbow first appears in Genesis as God’s covenant after the flood — a promise of salvation. In 1939 that symbol carried an unspoken dread: anti-Jewish laws already darkened Germany and Austria. Harburg could not foresee the Holocaust’s scale, yet its shadow hovers behind every hopeful line.

Flight itself — Icarus, Daedalus, the Wright brothers — has always meant escape. Dorothy’s wind-tossed journey in a balloon suggests freedom from the dreary Midwest to Technicolor Oz, but the film ultimately warns: be careful what you wish for.

In the end the song’s theme is simple yet profound: an eternal hunger for a kinder place and time. Whether read as a Jewish immigrant dream, a teenager’s fantasy or universal utopia, it remains a lullaby of hope that survives every storm.

Similar Songs

1. “When You Wish Upon a Star” – Cliff Edwards (1940)
   Both songs emerged on the eve of war, promising escape through celestial imagery. Like Garland’s ballad, Edwards’s Disney classic lingers on a tender 6th interval and a lullaby swing. Yet “Wish” resolves its cadence in comforting certainty, whereas “Over the Rainbow” lets the final chord hang—making the yearning feel perpetual.
2. “Smile” – Nat King Cole (1954)
   Cole’s velvet baritone wraps Chaplin’s melody in reassurance; thematically, it echoes Dorothy’s insistence that troubles can “melt like lemon drops.” The harmonic language is jazzier, but both songs pivot on bittersweet major-to-minor turns that suggest resilience is learned, not given.
3. “Rainbow Connection” – Kermit the Frog (1979)
   Paul Williams knowingly riffed on Arlen’s contour—the opening leap, the rainbow metaphor—while relocating the setting to a swampy banjo glide. Where Garland dreams of elsewhere, Kermit wonders why dreamers are dismissed; the dialogue between the two tracks forms a multi-decade conversation about imagination itself.

Questions and Answers

Why does “Over the Rainbow” resonate so strongly with LGBTQ+ listeners?

The lyric’s promise of a kinder place—and Garland’s own battles with Hollywood’s rigid norms—created an anthem of chosen-family hope. Critics from Richard Dyer to modern essays point to the rainbow as a shared symbol of identity and survival.

Did the original single chart in 1939?

Yes. Garland’s Decca studio version reached Billboard’s national survey at No. 5 in late 1939, remarkable in an era of competing band renditions.

What awards has the song won?

It claimed the 1940 Academy Award for Best Original Song, entered the Grammy Hall of Fame (1981), topped the RIAA/NEA “Songs of the Century” list (2001), and was inducted into the U.S. National Recording Registry (2017).

Is it in the public domain yet?

Not quite—U.S. copyright law protects it until at least 2034 (95 years after publication), and possibly 2056 due to renewal clauses.

What’s the most famous cover?

Israel Kamakawiwo?ole’s 1993 ukulele medley recast the tune in lilting Jawaiian rhythm, topping German charts in 2011 and earning multi-platinum status across Europe.

Awards and Chart Positions

• Academy Award – Best Original Song (1940)
• Billboard Pop Chart: No. 5 (Decca studio single, 1939)
• RIAA / NEA “Songs of the Century” – Ranked #1 (2001)
• AFI “100 Years…100 Songs” – Ranked #1 (2004)
• Grammy Hall of Fame Induction (1981)
• National Recording Registry (Library of Congress, 2017)

Fan and Media Reactions

“crazy this sh** dropped 86 years ago.” – fxckboi-yxki, SoundCloud

“The love is real.” – Emanoel, SoundCloud

“She ate.” – Bayleevarland, SoundCloud

“Judy Judy Judy.” – WICU, SoundCloud

“The most wonderful voice from a classical tale song… you’re a sweet woman.” – garrett auyong, SoundCloud

Critics, meanwhile, never let the song drift from the cultural radar. As Garland herself quipped, “They expect someone in gingham, with braids, to come out singing ‘Over the Rainbow.’ And out I come, instead.” The line captures how inseparable the tune is from her public image—yet she never tired of offering it, encore after encore, as a pocket-sized piece of possibility.