Best Version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"?

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Marusha made it go platinum again in 1994. Obviously not the best version, it was a popular one.

― blunt (blunt), Thursday, 8 December 2005 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Toby Swann is like what Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would sound like if they were good.

― applesider, Thursday, 8 December 2005 01:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Judy rather owns this song. The original from Oz in context can't be beat. But she sure gives it the ole college try live at Carnegie. The applause/cheers/bravos tell quite a lot in their own right.

― jim wentworth (wench), Thursday, 8 December 2005 02:59 (eighteen years ago) link

err, kermit?

― chris andrews (fraew), Thursday, 8 December 2005 03:23 (eighteen years ago) link

bud powell, bitches!

― etc, Thursday, 8 December 2005 04:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Xpost - I think that's the "Rainbow Connection," unless there was a Kermit cover of SOTR that's escaped me.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Thursday, 8 December 2005 04:10 (eighteen years ago) link

The Iz version makes an old song new.

If you have ever lost a beloved pet and can listen to this song tear-free, you're a better man than I.

― Justin, Thursday, 8 December 2005 04:13 (eighteen years ago) link

The music on Taito C64/ Spectrum classic Rainbow Islands has a brilliant version of this song.

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Thursday, 8 December 2005 11:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Harry Nilsson
Tiny Tim

... two of my favourite artists, Harry's version is nothing special, Tiny Tim's is good but not great

― We Buy a Hammer For Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 8 December 2005 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

David Bowie - Starman

― Trafalga, Thursday, 8 December 2005 21:25 (eighteen years ago) link

god, i have 68 versions of this back home, nearly all of them are terrible, from israeli psytrance to bluegrass.

wait, is there a chet atkins version?

― calderdale in the 70s (gareth), Thursday, 8 December 2005 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Best still has to be Garland '39, but last summer I heard Patti LaBelle do one live that clocked in at 10-12 minutes.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 8 December 2005 21:36 (eighteen years ago) link

best versions i've heard are j. garland and jimmy scott

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 8 December 2005 22:27 (eighteen years ago) link

the Jerry Lee one is awesome and sad.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 8 December 2005 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Who did the version at the end of Aki Kaurismaki's film Ariel?

― Hatch (Hatch), Thursday, 8 December 2005 23:13 (eighteen years ago) link

You should all hear the 1994 German rave version by Marusha, it's stunning. I could maybe YSI it while I get home...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 9 December 2005 10:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Nobody's mentioning Kylie?

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 9 December 2005 10:47 (eighteen years ago) link

i quite like the flaming lips version

― Carl Handwriting (dog latin), Friday, 9 December 2005 11:12 (eighteen years ago) link

The correct answer to the thread is "not Ronan Keating anyway, that's for sure".

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 9 December 2005 12:05 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.mandypatinkin.net/IMAGES/cdotr.jpeg

― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Friday, 9 December 2005 12:57 (eighteen years ago) link

three years pass...

― ilxor, Monday, 16 March 2009 01:54 (fifteen years ago) link

did tom waits ever do a version? feels like he ought to....

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, 16 March 2009 12:26 (fifteen years ago) link

Saw Frank Wess do a bossa version on flute last week that wasn't too shabby.

― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 14:00 (fifteen years ago) link

apparently Tom Wopat does a good non-bathetic version in his cabaret act.

btw song is titled "Over the Rainbow"

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 16 March 2009 14:04 (fifteen years ago) link

Isn't there some story that Yip Harburg didn't like it when Harold Arlen first played the melody for him? Said something like "That'll never be a hit!" or "Nobody will want to hear that!" The original melody, that is, I think it got changed along the way to the version we finally got to hear.

― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 14:31 (fifteen years ago) link

Don't remeber that one, but...

A time-honored story tells that the song was cut from the film after a preview, because MGM head Louis B. Mayer thought the song "slowed down the picture" and that "our star sings it in a barnyard". Harold Arlen, who was at the preview, and executive producer Arthur Freed lobbied successfully to get the song sequence reinstated.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, 16 March 2009 14:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Yeah, that too. OK here's the story, it wasn't quite the melody, it was the arrangement: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4805916.stm. Also here http://www.americansongwriter.com/2008/05/american-icons-yip-harburg/#printpreview

― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 14:35 (fifteen years ago) link

listening to this eva cassidy bullshit

― Surmounter, Monday, 23 March 2009 13:27 (fifteen years ago) link

Another vote for Bud Powell.

― Jazzbo, Monday, 23 March 2009 14:03 (fifteen years ago) link

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