| Musical Selections In The Wizard Of Oz |
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The songs from the 1939 musical film '' The Wizard Of Oz '' 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 '', is perhaps the most famous song ever written for a film. Music and lyrics were by Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg , who won an Academy Award For Best Song for "Over the Rainbow". Herbert Stothart , who underscored the film, won an Academy Award For Best Original Score , perhaps the only time that 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. The songs were recorded in a studio prior to filming. Several of the recordings were completed while Buddy Ebsen 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 . In the group vocals of " We're Off To See The Wizard ," 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 of a distinct Boston accent and did not pronounce the ''r'' in ''wizard''. Buddy Ebsen was a Midwest erner, like Judy Garland, and pronounced the ''r.'' The first recording from the film was not a Soundtrack Album in the sense that the term is used today. It was, instead, a sort of cover version - a U.S. Decca Records four-record 78 RPM album of songs from the film released in 1940, featuring Judy Garland as Dorothy, but with the Ken Darby Singers in other roles. The orchestra was conducted by Victor Young , and the musical arrangements were completely different from those used in the film. 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, and were incorporated into the album in 1940. The album was quite a success, and was eventually released as an LP . Judy Garland's 1939 singles of ''Over the Rainbow'' and ''The Jitterbug'' were released on the 1994 Decca box set ''The Complete Decca Masters (plus)'', which featured all of Judy's Decca singles and several alternate takes. The Decca single of ''Over the Rainbow'' has been released on an MCA Compact Disc 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. The 1940 album was supplanted in 1956 - the year that the film was first shown on TV - by MGM Records ' own authentic LP soundtrack album, which featured not only most of the songs exactly as heard in the film, but enough dialogue for listeners to be able to follow the story. Throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, this album was constantly reprinted and re-released, and eventually appeared in an expanded version on CD in 1989, released by CBS Records. This release also contained the original deleted film version of ''The Jitterbug'', albeit without its full intro, as a bonus track. Both albums, however, were supplanted in 1995 by Rhino Records 's extensive 2-CD soundtrack album featuring not only all the songs, but all of Herbert Stothart's background music from the film, as well as Outtake pieces of music, the opening and closing credits music, all of the songs cut from the film during its sneak previews, and Demo s for the songs - but no dialogue as in the 1956 album. Perhaps the only unfortunate aspect of this album is that, despite the fact that all of the music was included, the one vocal not heard is the Guards' chanting of "Oh -yee- oh, yeoh - oh!" outside the Wicked Witch's castle. A single-disc version is also available 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 contains all of the vocal outtakes, with the exception of the Over The Rainbow reprise, and extended versions, but discards 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, adding the deleted dance music from ''If I Only Had A Brain'', and included 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. Although the entire film is underscored by an orchestra, 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 three closing 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. Vocals composed for the film:
Instrumentals in the film:
Composed for the film:
Music not composed specifically for the film:
/ Soundtrack Album / Cover Version |
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