If you mention “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” people are more likely to think of Judy Garland’s soaring version for the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz than the gorgeous work of composers Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg. Some songs are the perfect vehicle for a performer’s interpretation and improvisation, and certain numbers are remembered more for the singer than the writer. Somewhere Over The Rainbow ( The Wizard Of Oz, 1939) But when it was sung in the 1936 film version by Paul Robeson, his moving baritone voice – and edgier interpretation – took the song to a new level.
The 1927 Broadway drama Show Boat featured Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s song performed by actors, and, a year later, Paul Whiteman (with Bing Crosby on vocals) had a minor hit with it. The song has also been covered numerous times down the years, including by jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on their 1956 album Ella And Louis.įor a tune to really make its mark among the best movie songs it sometimes has to find the right singer. The gorgeous words – “And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak” – and clever dance routine make this one of cinema’s most romantic moments. The song lights up a memorable scene during which a tuxedoed Astaire declares his love for Rogers (dancing elegantly in a feathery white gown). Russian-Jewish émigré Irving Berlin wrote “Cheek To Cheek” in a single day, on demand, for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie Top Hat. The classic love song was also featured in a tribute album called Blue Moon: Rodgers And Hart Covered By The Supremes. The beautiful lyrics – “Blue moon/You saw me standing alone/Without a dream in my heart/Without a love of my own” – have been sung down the years by most of the greatest singers of popular music, including Elvis Presley, Mel Tormé, Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald. “Blue Moon” evolved as a song from the MGM soundtrack-writing system, source of some of the best movie songs in their time Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart tailored the eventual finished version for a Clark Gable film called Manhattan Melodrama.
Here, then, is our pick of the 50 best movie songs of all time…
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