By DOUGLAS JOHN IMBROGNO | SOMETIMES, YOU JUST HAVE TO HEAR 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow,' (click the arrow above), a song well-described as a timeless tune of hope, aspiration, and resilience. And sometimes you are blessed to sing it with a soulmate named Albert Frank Perrone, while rehearsing one day many years ago, and deciding to flip ‘record’ on your cellphone. If happy little bluebirds fly above the rainbow, then, why, oh why, not you and I?
Read more about the backstory of "Over the Rainbow" here in a substack I no longer maintain. Did you know the song almost didn’t make it into “The Wizard of Oz”?
The original song showcases music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg. It was crafted in 1939 for “The Wizard of Oz,” and, of course, made legendary by a young Judy Garland. Little-known fact: the song almost didn’t make the cut for “The Wizard of Oz.” An advance screening ditched the tune, after it was removed by MGM executives who felt it slowed down the movie. In one of the 20th century’s most notable creative hissy fits, associate producer Arthur Freed issued an ultimatum, telling MGM head honcho Louis B. Mayer:
“The song stays — or I go.”
“Let the boys have the damn song,” Mayer reportedly responded. “Put it back in the picture. It can’t hurt.”
The rest is popular culture history. In 2001, “Over the Rainbow” was voted the greatest song of the 20th century in a joint survey by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America.
Musicologist Walter Frisch summed up the song’s impact well, both at the historic moment of its initial release and still yet in another century altogether:
“Over the Rainbow” serves as a classic “I want” song, expressing desires that motivate the protagonist’s actions. This sentiment resonated deeply during its release, coinciding with the onset of World War II, offering solace to those facing uncertainty. As Harburg intended, the “somewhere” in the song became a beacon of hope, symbolizing a brighter future and the power of imagination to overcome adversity. ~ WALTER FRISCH
BELOW, IS PART OF MY INTRODUCTION when I re-posted our version of the song to my old Substack in 2023. Like you, perhaps, I remain ever more exasperated by politics in August 2026, hoping and praying America will find some hope, aspiration, and resilience of its own come the November mid-terms. Meanwhile, here is some more about that rainbow:
When I weary of wannabe American autocrats, I may devote the better part of a day to knitting pixels into a video, to accentuate something a tad more positive. One such video (below) presents a sweet 2019 rehearsal duet of “Over the Rainbow,” with my musical partner of many years, Albert Frank Perrone, and me on matching vocals and a Guild classical guitar. While looking up another song of mine, I came upon our harmonic convergence from this rehearsal recording and wove a quickie music video around it.
The song became a “sacred” standard and veritable anthem for Judy Garland throughout her career, if not an albatross, at times. She once described how it felt to be obliged to sing a song later in life she had made famous as a girl: “It’s like being a grandmother in pigtails.” Saddled with the lifelong obligation to sing “Over the Rainbow” at some point during her concert sets, Frisch notes, Garland made the best of it, playing with the tune and changing its “tempo, timbre, rhythm, phrasing, diction and choice of pitches.”
The song came to be the final song of the evening at her concerts. But audiences had to work for it, writes Frisch. “At her Carnegie Hall concert in 1961, everyone knew that she was going to sing it, but the audience would have to clamor for it …”
AS FOR THE HUMBLE VERSION above by Albert and me, please note it was recorded to an iPhone in the second floor of a house, across from a power station in West Virginia’s capital city. So, like, don’t expect recording polish. But it does have, I feel, some harmonic soul, which should go with the territory of one of the most soulful tunes in the American songbook.
Albert first debuted the angelic harmony you’ll hear when we sang “Over the Rainbow” at a memorial for disability rights activist David Stewart some years back, in the capacious, echoing interior of the West Virginia State Capitol rotunda. I dream of doing a full-bore professional recording of the song there in the Rotunda with him someday.
SONG: “Over the Rainbow” by Harold Arlen & Yip Harburg | 1939
SINGERS: Albert Frank Perrone & Douglas John Imbrogno
GUITAR: Douglas John Imbrogno
AUDIO: Rehearsal Smartphone Recording | 2018
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