Musical selections in The Wizard of Oz
Encyclopedia

The songs from the 1939 musical fantasy film The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

have taken their place among the most famous and instantly recognizable American popular songs of all time, and the film's principal song, Over the Rainbow
Over the Rainbow
"Over the Rainbow" is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by Judy Garland in the movie...

, is perhaps the most famous song ever written for a film. Music and lyrics were by Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...

 and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg
Yip Harburg
Edgar Yipsel Harburg , known as E.Y. Harburg or Yip Harburg, was an American popular song lyricist who worked with many well-known composers...

, who won an Academy Award for Best Song for "Over the Rainbow".

Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart was a song writer, arranger, conductor, and composer. He was also nominated for nine Oscars, winning Best Original Score for The Wizard of Oz.-Biography:...

, who underscored
Underscoring
In film production, underscoring is the playing of music quietly under dialogue or a visual scene. It is usually done to establish a mood or theme. In a play, sometimes incidental music is used for this purpose....

 the film, won an Academy Award for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

, perhaps the only time that the instrumental
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

 underscoring for a musical film has actually won an Oscar. Some of that underscoring was, of course, based on Harburg and Arlen's songs. Georgie Stoll
Georgie Stoll
Georgie Stoll was a musical director, conductor, composer and jazz violinist, associated with the Golden Age of MGM musicals and performers from the 1940s to 1960s. Born George Martin Stoll, he was also later credited as George E...

 was the associate conductor and screen credits were given to George Bassman
George Bassman
George Bassman was an American composer and arranger.-Biography:Born in New York to a Russian Jewish émigré couple, Bassman was later raised in Boston and began studying music at the Boston Conservatory while still a boy....

, Murray Cutter
Murray Cutter
Murray Cutter was a versatile Hollywood orchestrator, working mainly for filmcomposer Max Steiner, with over 150 credits spanning the mid-thirties to early 1960s...

 (who did "Over the Rainbow"), Ken Darby
Ken Darby
Kenneth Lorin Darby was an American composer, vocal arranger, lyricist, and conductor. His film scores were recognized with three Academy Awards and one Grammy Award.- Personal life :...

 and Paul Marquardt for orchestral and vocal arrangements. As usual, Roger Edens
Roger Edens
Roger Edens was a Hollywood composer, arranger and associate producer, and is considered one of the major creative figures in Arthur Freed's musical film production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the "golden era of Hollywood".-Early career and work with Judy Garland:Edens was born in...

 was heavily involved as the unbilled musical associate of Freed. Incidental music was contributed by Stoll, Bassman, Robert Stringer and also Conrad Salinger
Conrad Salinger
Conrad Salinger was an American arranger, orchestrator and composer, who studied classical composition at the Paris Conservatoire. He is credited with orchestrating nine productions on Broadway from 1931 to 1938, and over seventy-five motion pictures from 1931 to 1962...

.

The songs were recorded in a studio before filming. Several of the recordings were completed while Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen was an American character actor and dancer. A performer for seven decades, he had starring roles as Jed Clampett in the long-running television series The Beverly Hillbillies and as the title character in the 1970s detective series Barnaby Jones, and played Barnaby Jones in the movie...

 was still with the cast. So while he had to be dropped from the cast due to illness from the aluminum powder makeup, his singing voice remains on the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

. In the group vocals of "We're off to See the Wizard
We're Off to See the Wizard
"We're Off to See the Wizard" is one of the classic and most memorable songs from the Academy Award-winning film The Wizard of Oz. Composer Harold Arlen described it, along with "The Merry Old Land of Oz" and "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead", as one of the "lemon drop" songs of the film.The melody's...

," his voice is easy to detect. Ray Bolger (and also Jack Haley, who had a solo but was not in the group vocal) were speakers with a distinct Boston accent and did not pronounce the r in wizard. Buddy Ebsen was a Midwesterner, like Judy Garland, and pronounced the r.

Although an orchestra underscores the entire film, approximately the last third of the movie contains no songs. Once Dorothy and her cohorts are handed the task of killing the Wicked Witch, the mood of the film goes a bit darker. This was not originally intended -- the last three songs in the film, "The Jitterbug," the vocal reprise of "Over The Rainbow," and "The Triumphant Return" were all excised from the film before its official release.

Song previews

The songs were first heard on radio on a program called MGM: Leo Is On the Air a few months prior to the film's release. Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...

 had earlier recorded a single of Over the Rainbow
Over the Rainbow
"Over the Rainbow" is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by Judy Garland in the movie...

as well as The Jitterbug
The Jitterbug
"The Jitterbug" was a song sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy, together with the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion, that was cut from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was both a jazzy development of the plot and a nod to the then popular bobby-soxer dance craze...

, a song eventually deleted from the film, but MGM had suppressed the recording because they wanted to preview the songs themselves. The radio preview proved a huge success and, through repeated live radio playings, "Over the Rainbow" soared to the top of the hit parade
Hit parade
A hit parade is a ranked list of the most popular recordings at a given point in time, usually determined by sales and/or airplay. The term originated in the 1930s; Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade on January 4, 1936...

 charts even before audiences saw the film.

An obviously staged "backstage glimpse" at the planning and making of the film, hosted by Robert Young
Robert Young (actor)
Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...

, and featuring Judy Garland, lyricist E.Y. Harburg, and composer Harold Arlen, was the subject of an episode of the Good News of 1939 radio program. This program also gave a sneak preview of some of the music, but interspersed it with comedy skits by such artists as Fannie Brice. Ms. Brice, in her radio persona of Baby Snooks, was featured in a skit in which Lancelot Higgins (Hanley Stafford
Hanley Stafford
Hanley Stafford . An actor principally on radio, he is remembered best for playing Lancelot Higgins on The Baby Snooks Show. He is commemorated by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.-External links:...

) tried to tell her the story of The Wizard of Oz, but was constantly interrupted (and kept from attending the film's premiere) by the toddler. The entire program, as well as the Leo is On the Air episode, is included as a supplement on the Wizard of Oz DVD.

1940 Decca Studio Album

The first record album of music from the film was not a soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...

 in the sense that the term is used today, or even an original cast album, although it is sometimes erroneously called so. It was, instead, a sort of cover version - a U.S. Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 four-record 78 RPM studio cast album
Studio recording
The term studio recording means any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.-Studio cast recordings:...

 of songs from the film released in 1940, featuring Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

 as Dorothy, but with the Ken Darby
Ken Darby
Kenneth Lorin Darby was an American composer, vocal arranger, lyricist, and conductor. His film scores were recognized with three Academy Awards and one Grammy Award.- Personal life :...

 Singers in other roles. (Darby had also been one of the actual film's music arrangers.) This album was about twenty minutes in length. There was no overture included, only the songs, and most of them were not placed in the same order that they were heard in the film. The album also used some introductory song verses which had not been included in the motion picture. Two songs heard in the film as finally released were omitted from the album - Optimistic Voices and If I Were King of the Forest; however, the album did include the song The Jitterbug, which had been deleted from the film. It also used, oddly enough, dialogue which never appeared in the movie - at one point, during "The Merry Old Land of Oz", Dorothy says: "We can't go to see the Wizard like this! We're all dirty!", after which the group supposedly enters the Wash and Brush Up room in the Emerald City. The reprise of Over the Rainbow and the Triumphal return sequence were also not included.

The orchestra on the album was conducted by Victor Young
Victor Young
Victor Young was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor. He was born in Chicago.-Biography:...

, and the orchestrations were completely different from those used in the film, as were some of the vocal arrangements. In the "Munchkinland" medley, the Ken Darby Singers provided the voices of the Munchkins, but they were not altered to sound "chipmunk"-like, as in the film. The role of Glinda was sung by an unnamed soprano with an operatic voice, and in the song "If I Only Had A Heart", the role of the Tin Man was sung by a tenor whose voice bordered on falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...

. The two songs Garland sang on the album, Over the Rainbow and The Jitterbug, had already been released as a 78-RPM single in 1939 only a month after the film's premiere, and were incorporated into the album. (This single had nothing to do with the Brunswick Records recording that had been suppressed by MGM.) On the rest of the 1940 album, an unnamed soloist took the role of Dorothy.

This first Wizard of Oz movie album was quite a success, and after being reissued in a 45 -RPM version and as a 10-inch LP, it was finally re-released in 1956 as one side of a 12-inch 33 1/3 RPM LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

, the other side occupied by cover versions of songs from Disney's
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 Pinocchio
Pinocchio (1940 film)
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It is the second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, and it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was released to theaters by...

, (1940) with Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards , also known as "Ukelele Ike", was an American singer and voice actor who enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. He had a number-one hit with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1929...

, the film's Jiminy Cricket, as lead soloist. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, this is also the year that MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...

 first released an authentic soundtrack album made from the film.)

The 1940 Decca "cover album" stayed in print throughout the 1950s, even after the authentic soundtrack album of The Wizard of Oz was released. Judy Garland's 1939 cover versions of Over the Rainbow and The Jitterbug were released years later on the 1994 Decca box set The Complete Decca Masters (plus), which featured all of Garland's Decca singles and several alternate takes. The Decca single of Over the Rainbow has been released on an MCA
Music Corporation of America
MCA, Inc. was an American talent agency. Initially starting in the music business, they would next become a dominant force in the film business, and later expanded into the television business...

 compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 entitled 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection - The Best of Judy Garland, among various other compilations; the rest of the 1940 album of The Wizard of Oz has yet to be issued on CD, however.

MGM Soundtrack Album

In 1956 - the year that the film was first shown on TV - MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...

 released their own authentic 40-minute LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 soundtrack album from the film, which featured not only most of the songs, but enough dialogue for listeners to be able to follow the story, almost exactly as heard on the movie soundtrack. There were a few minor edits in this 1956 edition, i.e., Aunt Em's two lines "Dorothy, please, we're trying to count!" [referring to their farm chickens], and "Dorothy, Dorothy, we're busy!" were turned into the single line "Dorothy, Dorothy, we're busy! Please, we're trying to count!". The songs Optimistic Voices and The Merry Old Land of Oz, and the Tin Man's instrumental dance to If I Only Had a Heart were omitted from the LP release; also gone were half of the Munchkinland medley, the entire Professor Marvel sequence, the moments during the tornado scene during which Dorothy sees people - including Miss Gulch - flying past her window, the talking apple trees scene, the appearance of the Witch on the roof of the Tin Man's cottage, the poppy field sequence, the moment when the Lion reads "Surrender Dorothy" in the sky, and the scene in the Haunted Forest in which the Tin Man is mysteriously lifted into the air. Also gone was the moment in which the Scarecrow says "They tore my legs off and they threw them over there", etc., and the Tin Man answers "Well, that's you all over", and the scene in which Dorothy's friends are scaling the cliff in order to get to the witch's castle, as well as many tiny bits from the film.

This soundtrack recording eventually supplanted the 1940 studio album. Throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, it was constantly reprinted and re-released (each time with different cover art
Cover art
Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e...

 work), and the album eventually appeared in an expanded version on CD in 1989, released by CBS Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 instead of MGM. The 1989 release also contained the original deleted film version of The Jitterbug
The Jitterbug
"The Jitterbug" was a song sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy, together with the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion, that was cut from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was both a jazzy development of the plot and a nod to the then popular bobby-soxer dance craze...

, albeit without its full intro, as a bonus track. In 1998, to coincide with a digitally restored and remastered theatrical reissue, the album was reissued on Rhino Records as The Songs And Story Of The Wizard Of Oz. The album was edited from the reissues digital stereo soundtrack, created from surviving multiple recording stems, and as such was the first ever album to feature many of the songs in true stereo sound.

MGM 1963 Studio Album

In 1963, MGM Records issued an entirely new LP recording featuring four selections from The Wizard of Oz , this one a true cover version with none of the film's cast. Also included on the album were selections from Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

's Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (operetta)
Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough , which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. The creators wanted to cash in on the extraordinary success of The Wizard of Oz,...

. This album quickly sank into obscurity and has never been issued on CD. It featured such artists as Jackson Beck
Jackson Beck
Jackson Beck was an American actor best known as the announcer on radio's The Adventures of Superman and the voice of Bluto in the Famous era Popeye theatrical shorts.-Career:...

.

Rhino Records Deluxe Soundtrack Album

In 1995, all previous albums of The Wizard of Oz were supplanted by Rhino Records' extensive, new 2-CD soundtrack album featuring not only all the songs, but all of Herbert Stothart's background music, as well as outtake
Outtake
An outtake is a portion of a work that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and DVD reissues of many albums and films as bonus tracks or features, in film often, but not...

 pieces of music, the opening and closing credits music, all of the songs cut from the film during its sneak previews, and demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...

s for the songs. (See tracklisting below.) In all, this album played for well over two hours, longer than the actual film. All of the songs and music, except for the demos, were presented in the exact order that they would have been heard in the film had it not been slightly trimmed before release.

The 1995 album contains no spoken dialogue. One vocal not heard on the album is the Guards' chanting of "O - Ee- Yah, Eoh - Ah!" outside the Wicked Witch's castle, as only the instrumental music track is included. Also unheard is the "Lions and tigers and bears!" chant. Another oddity is that although a full track of "Cyclone" instrumental is used, in lieu of the film's shortened soundtrack which has an audible edit, only one of the two tracks for the segment was located, so the mix is different from the "normal" version.

A single-disc version was also produced, containing only the vocal selections, the main title, the "Cyclone" instrumental, and the score for the final scene where Dorothy goes home. The single-disc still contained all of the vocal outtakes, with the exception of the "Over The Rainbow" reprise, and extended versions of songs, but discarded almost all of the background score. Despite the existence of multi-track recordings, which had been made in order to create a more full and balanced monaural track for the film, none of the music on either release was mixed in stereo.

In 1998, when the film received a complete digital video and audio restoration, including a new stereo mix, Rhino Records released The Songs And Story Of "The Wizard Of Oz", which expanded the 1956 MGM album even further, taking off The Jitterbug
The Jitterbug
"The Jitterbug" was a song sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy, together with the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion, that was cut from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was both a jazzy development of the plot and a nod to the then popular bobby-soxer dance craze...

, adding the deleted dance music from "If I Only Had A Brain", and including additional bits of dialogue absent from previous releases. This was also the first time that the Oz songs were made available on CD in stereo, some in simulated stereo, and some in true stereo thanks to the existence of most of MGM's original multi-track recordings of the music from the film.

Music in the film

Vocals composed for the film
  • Over the Rainbow
    Over the Rainbow
    "Over the Rainbow" is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by Judy Garland in the movie...

     - Dorothy (Judy Garland
    Judy Garland
    Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

    )
  • Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
    Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
    "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" is the centrepiece of several individual songs in an extended set-piece performed by the Munchkins, Glinda and Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was composed by Harold Arlen, with the lyrics written by E.Y...

     - Glinda (Billie Burke
    Billie Burke
    Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke was an American actress. She is primarily known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical film The Wizard of Oz. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live...

    , erroneously reported dubbed by Lorraine Bridges) / The Munchkins
    Munchkin
    The Munchkins are the natives of the fictional Munchkin Country in the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. They first appeared in the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which they are described as being somewhat short of stature, and wear only blue...

     (Singer's Midgets, billed as The Singer Midgets in the film's closing credits)
  • It Really Was No Miracle - Judy Garland and the Munchkins
  • Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead - The Munchkins
  • The Lullaby League - Three Munchkin girls (Betty Rome, Carol Tevis, Lorraine Bridges)
  • The Lollipop Guild - Three Munchkin boys (Billy Bletcher, Jerry Maren, Cliff Edwards)
  • We Welcome You to Munchkinland - The Munchkins
  • You're Off to See the Wizard
    We're Off to See the Wizard
    "We're Off to See the Wizard" is one of the classic and most memorable songs from the Academy Award-winning film The Wizard of Oz. Composer Harold Arlen described it, along with "The Merry Old Land of Oz" and "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead", as one of the "lemon drop" songs of the film.The melody's...

     - The Munchkins
  • If I Only Had a Brain
    If I Only Had A Brain
    "If I Only Had a Brain" is a song by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg . The song is sung in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz by the characters that meet Dorothy...

     - Scarecrow (Ray Bolger
    Ray Bolger
    Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...

    )/Judy Garland
  • We're Off to See the Wizard
    We're Off to See the Wizard
    "We're Off to See the Wizard" is one of the classic and most memorable songs from the Academy Award-winning film The Wizard of Oz. Composer Harold Arlen described it, along with "The Merry Old Land of Oz" and "Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead", as one of the "lemon drop" songs of the film.The melody's...

     - Judy Garland / Ray Bolger / Buddy Ebsen (pre-recorded) / Bert Lahr
  • If I Only Had a Heart
    If I Only Had A Brain
    "If I Only Had a Brain" is a song by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg . The song is sung in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz by the characters that meet Dorothy...

     - Tin Man (Jack Haley
    Jack Haley
    John Joseph "Jack" Haley was an American stage, radio, and film actor best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man and Kansas farmworker Hickory in The Wizard of Oz.-Career:...

    )
  • If I Only Had the Nerve
    If I Only Had A Brain
    "If I Only Had a Brain" is a song by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg . The song is sung in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz by the characters that meet Dorothy...

    - Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr
    Bert Lahr
    Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...

    )
  • Optimistic Voices
    Optimistic Voices
    "Optimistic Voices" is the name of both a song and the choir singing it, from the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. The music is by Herbert Stothart & Harold Arlen and the lyrics are by E.Y. Harburg....

     - unseen chorus
  • The Merry Old Land of Oz
    The Merry Old Land Of Oz
    "The Merry Old Land of Oz" is a song from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and the musical. It is sung by the townspeople of the Emerald City, who are joined at appropriate times by the group of four travelers: Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion....

     - Carriage Driver at Emerald City (Frank Morgan
    Frank Morgan
    Frank Morgan was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of the title character in the film The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...

    ) / Judy Garland / Ray Bolger / Bert Lahr / Jack Haley / Citizens of the Emerald City
  • If I Were King of the Forest
    If I Were King Of The Forest
    "If I Were King of the Forest" is a song from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg.The comic number is sung by the Cowardly Lion during the scene at the Emerald City, when the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy , the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are waiting to...

     - Bert Lahr, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley
  • The Jitterbug
    The Jitterbug
    "The Jitterbug" was a song sung by Judy Garland as Dorothy, together with the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion, that was cut from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was both a jazzy development of the plot and a nod to the then popular bobby-soxer dance craze...

     (cut from the film) - Judy Garland / Ray Bolger / Jack Haley / Bert Lahr
  • Over the Rainbow (Reprise) (cut from the film) - Judy Garland
  • Hail Hail The Witch Is Dead
    Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead
    "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" is the centrepiece of several individual songs in an extended set-piece performed by the Munchkins, Glinda and Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It was composed by Harold Arlen, with the lyrics written by E.Y...

     / The Merry Old Land Of Oz (Reprise) (cut from the film; a brief moment from this can be seen in the 1949 re-release trailer for the film) - Head Winkie Guard (dubbed by Ken Darby
    Ken Darby
    Kenneth Lorin Darby was an American composer, vocal arranger, lyricist, and conductor. His film scores were recognized with three Academy Awards and one Grammy Award.- Personal life :...

    )/Citizens of the Emerald City


Instrumentals in the film:
  • In addition to the well-known vocals by Harburg and Arlen, nearly the entire film was underscored by arranger Herbert Stothart, using a mixture of instrumental-only leitmotif
    Leitmotif
    A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...

    s composed for some of the characters; instrumental references to some of the vocals; and traditional and classical pieces. Much of the following information (which is by no means an exhaustive list) is taken from the Deluxe CD liner notes.


Composed for the film:
  • Opening credits medley: Glinda's theme, dynamic full-orchestra version, played over the MGM Leo the Lion
    Leo the Lion (MGM)
    Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss....

     logo; followed by segments of "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead" played slowly and majestically, so that the song is almost unrecognizable; they lead into "Over the Rainbow", then we hear "It Really Was No Miracle", "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are" and "It Really Was No Miracle" again, followed by original music while the film's foreword
    Foreword
    A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells...

     appears on the screen.
  • Miss Gulch's / Witch's theme - repeated every time Miss Gulch or the witch appears. This repeated seven-note motif is actually a "crippled" variation (inverted and compressed in range) of the musical figure for "We're off to see the Wizard".
  • Orientale theme - for Professor Marvel and for The Wizard
  • Glinda's theme - 6-note pattern repeated several times rapidly each time Glinda arrives or leaves in her bubble: G, D, E, B-flat, G, C-sharp.
  • Closing credits medley: Glinda's theme (full orchestra) / Over the Rainbow


Music not composed specifically for the film:
  • "The Happy Farmer", i.e. Fröhlicher Landmann, von der Arbeit zurückkehrend, "The Happy Farmer Returning from Work" from Schumann's
    Robert Schumann
    Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

     Album for the Young
    Album für die Jugend
    Album for the Young , Op. 68, was composed by Robert Schumann in 1848 for his three daughters. The album consists of a collection of 43 short works. Unlike the Kinderszenen, they are suitable to be played by children or beginners. The second part, starting at Nr...

     - opening scene, establishing scenes in Kansas, and during "ride" in cyclone
  • "My Castle's in the Courtyard" (nursery rhyme) - in sequence leading up to "Over the Rainbow"
  • "The Whistler And His Dog" (by Septimus Winner
    Septimus Winner
    Septimus Winner is best known as a songwriter of the nineteenth century. He used his own name, and also the pseudonyms Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton...

    ) a.k.a. "Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?" - when Toto escapes from Miss Gulch's basket as she pedals on her bicycle to the sheriff
  • "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree
    In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree
    In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree is a popular song dating from 1905. It was written by Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne .The meter of its chorus is in the form of a Limerick.It can safely be characterized as a highly sentimental tune...

    " (by Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne
    Egbert Van Alstyne
    Egbert Anson Van Alstyne was a United States songwriter and pianist. Van Alstyne was the composer of a number of popular and ragtime tunes from the early 20th century.He was born in Marengo, Illinois...

    ) - when Dorothy and the Scarecrow find themselves in an apple orchard
  • Scherzo Opus 16 #2 (by Mendelssohn
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

    ) - when Toto escapes from the castle
  • "Night on Bald Mountain
    Night on Bald Mountain
    Night on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in, at least, two versions—a seldom performed 1867 version or a later and very popular "fantasy for orchestra" arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain , based on the vocal score of the "Dream Vision...

    " (by Mussorgsky
    Modest Mussorgsky
    Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...

    ) - during chase scenes at the witch's castle
  • "Gaudeamus Igitur" (traditional) - a few bars when the Wizard awards the Scarecrow his honorary degree
  • "Home! Sweet Home!
    Home! Sweet Home!
    "Home! Sweet Home!" is a song that has remained well-known for over 150 years. Adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera Clari, Maid of Milan, the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by Payne...

    " (by John Howard Payne
    John Howard Payne
    John Howard Payne was an American actor, poet, playwright, and author who had most of his theatrical career and success in London. He is today most remembered as the creator of "Home! Sweet Home!", a song he wrote in 1822 that became widely popular in the United States, Great Britain, and the...

     and Henry Bishop) - as Dorothy says the words and clicks her heels, and in the final scene in Kansas. In the final moments of this scene, a horn intones "Home Sweet Home" in counterpoint to the final strain of "Over The Rainbow."


Tracklisting for Rhino Deluxe Edition

This set does not include any spoken dialogue. Its main purpose is to present the songs as well as the pure audio background music from the movie. The set is quite extensive as it contains many "extended versions" of songs and background music with which most people are familiar. All of the songs from the movie are presented on the set in their full, and even some extended, vocal versions. Vocal tracks are identified (vocal) in bold type; other tracks are instrumentals.

Disc One:
  1. Main Title
  2. Trouble in School - (extended version)
  3. Farmyard - (outtake)
  4. Over the Rainbow - vocal
  5. Miss Gulch - (extended version)
  6. Leaving Home
  7. Crystal Gazing
  8. Cyclone - (extended version)
  9. Munchkinland
  10. I'm Not a Witch
  11. Come Out, Come Out... - vocal
  12. It Really Was No Miracle - vocal
  13. We Thank You Very Sweetly - vocal
  14. Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead - vocal
  15. As Mayor of the Munchkin City - vocal
  16. As Coroner, I Must Aver - vocal
  17. Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead (Reprise) - vocal
  18. Lullaby League, The - vocal
  19. Lollipop Guild, The - vocal
  20. We Welcome You to Munchkinland - vocal
  21. Threatening Witch - (extended version)
  22. Leaving Munchkinland
  23. Good Fairy Vanishes
  24. Follow The Yellow Brick Road / You're Off To See The Wizard - vocal
  25. Cornfield, The
  26. If I Only Had a Brain - (extended version) - vocal
  27. We're Off to See the Wizard - (duo) - vocal
  28. Apple Orchard, The - (extended version)
  29. If I Only Had a Heart - (extended version) - vocal
  30. Witch on Roof - (extended version)
  31. Bees & Tin Woodman Lament - (partial outtake)
  32. We're Off to See the Wizard - (trio) - vocal
  33. Into the Forest of Wild Beasts
  34. Lion's Confession, The - (outtake)
  35. If I Only Had the Nerve - vocal
  36. We're Off to See the Wizard - (quartet) - vocal
  37. Poppies
  38. Spell, The - (extended version)
  39. Optimistic Voices - vocal
  40. Sign On The Gate / The City Gates Open - (extended version)
  41. Merry Old Land of Oz, The - vocal
  42. Change Of The Guard (Outtake) / Wizard's Exit
  43. If I Were King of the Forest - vocal
  44. At the Gates of Emerald City - (extended version)
  45. Magic Smoke Chords
  46. Terrified Lion


Disc Two:
  1. Haunted Forest, The - (extended version)
  2. Jitterbug, The - (outtake) - vocal
  3. Jitterbug's Attack, The - (extended version)
  4. Witch's Castle, The - (extended version)
  5. Toto Brings News
  6. Over The Rainbow (Reprise) - vocal (outtake)
  7. March of the Winkies
  8. Dorothy's Rescue - (extended version)
  9. On the Castle Wall - (extended version)
  10. Ding-Dong! Emerald City - vocal (outtake)
  11. The Wizard's Expose / Emerald City Graduation Exercises
  12. Fill-In Awards / I Was Floating Through Space / Balloon Ascension / Second Cheer
  13. I Hereby Decree
  14. Delirious Escape / Delirious Escape Continued / End Title
  15. Main Title - (alternate take with unused tag)
  16. Over the Rainbow - (partial take) - vocal
  17. Over the Rainbow - (alternate take) - vocal
  18. Cyclone - (final film version)
  19. Munchkinland Insert - (alternate tag)
  20. I'm Not a Witch - (alternate version)
  21. Munchkinland Musical Sequence - (rehearsal demo) - vocal
  22. Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead - (alternate a cappella choir version) - vocal
  23. Lollipop Guild, The - (original Munchkin actors' voices) - vocal
  24. Follow The Yellow Brick Road / You're Off To See The Wizard - (orchestral angles)
  25. If I Only Had a Brain - (unused dance music)
  26. If I Only Had a Heart - (unused version) - vocal by Buddy Ebsen
  27. Lion's Confession, The - (alternate take outtake/ alternate arrangement)
  28. Poppies - (alternate version with heavenly choir)
  29. Optimistic Voices - (rehearsal demo) - vocal
  30. Optimistic Voices - (alternate vocal arrangement) - vocal
  31. Merry Old Land of Oz, The - (orchestral angles)
  32. If I Were King of the Forest - (alternate take partial take/alternate vocal tag) - vocal
  33. If I Were King of the Forest - (alternate vocal tag) - vocal
  34. Jitterbug, The - (choreography rehearsal)
  35. Over the Rainbow (Reprise) - (outtake/ alternate version) - vocal
  36. Ding Dong! Emerald City - (alternate version)
  37. End Title - (alternate version)

See also

  • Stage musicals using most of the songs from the film:
    • The Wizard of Oz (1942 musical)
      The Wizard of Oz (1942 musical)
      The Wizard of Oz is a musical commissioned by the St. Louis Municipal Opera based on the novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz and using the film's songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg...

    • The Wizard of Oz (1987 musical)
    • The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical)
      The Wizard of Oz (2011 musical)
      The Wizard of Oz is a musical based on the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The adaptation is by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jeremy Sams. The musical uses all of the Harold Arlen and E. Y...


External links

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