Over the Rainbow

Written by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg, “Over the Rainbow” is a famous song which was written in the late 30s and is known until today (Arlen, 2013). This song was written for the film The Wizard of Oz and talks about somewhere beautiful over the rainbow, where the dreams really do come true, the sky is blue and the problems do not exist. It was used in the begining of the film when the  character Dorothy, performed by Judy Garland, wants to scape her sad life on the farm looking for to be in heaven where she thinks is a good place like the music says (Garland, 2014).

First, this music was named “Over the Rainbow is where I want to be” (Garland, 2014). The world was passing through a critical period in political, which was called Great Depression. Great Depression was the severe worldwide economic depression, which lasted from 1929 to early 1940s. In 1929, the stock market crased with no hope to recovery. So, the panic struck the population. People have wanted to  sell their stock, but nobody has bought it. Furthermore, banks had invested a lot of money from their customers savings in the stock market, so they were forced to close when the stock market crashed (Rosemberg, 2014).

Businesses and industry were affected, too. Because of the closed banks, they  have lost much of their own capital, so they have wanted to reduce the salary of their employees. Since the employees have had salary reduction, they spent less money and stoped to buy things as luxury goods. So, the industry didn’t sell its products and it also closed. This was a period of severe economic crisis in all sectors. It was during the presidency of Hebert Hoover that the US economy broke down and entered the Great Depression. But in 1932, people of the US has high hope to solve all their problems, because in this year Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected. He started to establish programs designed to get America out of the Great Depression, which was known as New Deal. So, the lyrics of “Over the Rainbow” had a political significance. Harburg wanted to express hope for America under Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal”  program (Rosemberg, 2014).

In 1939, this song won the Oscar for Best Original Song and the film Wizard Of Oz  won the Oscar for Best Score (Garland, 2014). Since this year, this music has singed by many famamous artists as Eric Clapton, Beyonce and Pink, but one of the most famous versions was the version singed by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.

We don’t live in a perfect world, so we are always hoping for somewhere where there is no descrimination, social difference and wars, and where our dreams can be reality.  Because of it, this song is so popular until today.