You know the song. Everyone does. It’s that lullaby about bluebirds and lemon drops that usually makes people feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But if you look at the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a guy named Edgar "Yip" Harburg, you realize the song isn’t just about a magical land where troubles melt like lemon drops. It was actually a coded message of hope from a man who had seen the absolute worst of the American Dream.
Yip Harburg didn't just stumble into songwriting because he liked catchy tunes. He was a businessman who lost everything in the 1929 stock market crash. He literally went from owning a successful electrical appliance business to being $30,000 in debt. He was broke. Flat broke. That's when his friend, the legendary Ira Gershwin, told him to stop crying and start writing.
He did.
The Socialist Behind the Sparkle
Most people assume the song is just "Wizard of Oz" fluff, but Harburg was a staunch socialist. He was deeply political. To him, the "rainbow" wasn't just a pretty arc in the sky; it was a symbol of social equality and a better world for the working class. When he sat down with composer Harold Arlen to write for the 1939 film, he wanted to give Dorothy a reason to want to leave Kansas. Kansas was grey. It was the Dust Bowl. It was poverty.
The lyrics weren't just whimsical. They were aspirational in a way that felt almost rebellious at the time.
Think about the context of 1939. The world was on the brink of World War II. The Great Depression was still heavy on everyone's shoulders. When the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow wrote about a place where "the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true," he wasn't talking about winning the lottery. He was talking about a world without bread lines.
Why the Song Almost Didn't Exist
It's kind of wild to think about, but MGM executives actually hated the song at first. They thought it slowed down the movie. They felt it was "too sophisticated" for a little girl from Kansas to be singing in a barnyard. They cut it three times. Three times! Each time, associate producer Arthur Freed had to threaten to quit to get it put back in.
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Imagine The Wizard of Oz without that song. It’s impossible. It’s the emotional spine of the whole story.
Harburg’s genius was his ability to hide complex, sometimes painful emotions inside simple, "kinda" sugary words. He believed that if you want to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh or cry, or they'll kill you. He chose to make them sing.
The Blacklist and the Price of Being Loud
Being the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow didn't protect Yip from the political climate of the 1950s. Despite writing one of the most beloved songs in human history, Harburg was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
Why? Because he refused to name names. Because his lyrics often poked fun at capitalism or championed the underdog. He was "too red" for Hollywood. For a decade, the man who gave the world its ultimate anthem of hope couldn't get a job in film or television. He was effectively erased from the industry he helped build.
He didn't care much, though. He just went to Broadway. He wrote Finian’s Rainbow, which was incredibly bold for its time because it featured a racially integrated chorus and mocked a bigoted Southern senator.
Harburg was consistent. He was a troublemaker.
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The Harold Arlen Connection
We can’t talk about the author without talking about the sound. Harold Arlen wrote the melody, and it wasn't an easy birth. Arlen was struggling to find the right "big" tune. He was driving to a movie at Grauman's Chinese Theatre with his wife when the melody hit him. He pulled the car over and jotted it down.
When he showed it to Harburg, Yip actually didn't like it at first! He thought it was too grand, too much like a symphony. He told Arlen, "It’s for a 12-year-old girl, not an opera singer." They had to simplify it, tweak the tempo, and add that "bridge" (the part about lemon drops) to give it some lightness.
It was the perfect marriage of Arlen’s "Jewish blues" influence and Harburg’s whimsical, yet biting, lyricism.
What the Lyrics Really Mean (If You Look Closely)
The song is built on a specific structure of yearning.
- The Leap: The first two notes are an octave jump. It’s a musical stretch. It represents the effort of trying to reach something far away.
- The "Why Can't I?": This is the most important line Harburg ever wrote. It’s not a statement; it’s a question. It’s a challenge to the status quo.
Harburg once said that "fantasy is the only way to talk about reality without being boring." By putting his hopes for a better society into the mouth of a girl and her dog, he made his radicalism universal. You don't have to be a socialist to feel the tug of that song. You just have to be human.
Honestly, the way we consume the song today is a bit sanitized. We use it for graduations and funerals. We’ve turned it into a generic "hope" song. But for Yip, it was a protest song. It was a "someday" that he was fighting for every day.
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Yip Harburg's Legacy Beyond the Oz
While most people only know him as the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, his catalog is actually massive and incredibly influential. He wrote "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", which became the definitive anthem of the Great Depression. If "Rainbow" is the dream, "Dime" is the cold, hard reality.
He also wrote:
- "It's Only a Paper Moon"
- "April in Paris"
- "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" (which Groucho Marx loved)
He had this weird, wonderful ability to be both cynical and sentimental at the exact same time. He knew the world was broken, but he couldn't help but hope it might get fixed.
How to Really Appreciate the Song Now
If you want to understand the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, you have to listen to the song differently. Stop thinking about the movie for a second.
Think about a man who lost his business, lived through a global economic collapse, saw his friends betrayed during the Red Scare, and still believed that birds fly over the rainbow.
It’s not a naive song. It’s a brave one.
Actionable Insights for the Curious:
- Read "Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz?": This is the definitive biography of Yip Harburg, written by Harold Meyerson and Ernie Harburg. It dives deep into his political activism and how it shaped his lyrics.
- Listen to the Original Demo: Seek out recordings of Harold Arlen singing the song. It’s much more "bluesy" and reveals the melancholy that lives under the surface of Judy Garland’s version.
- Explore the Blacklist History: Check out the "Hollywood Ten" and the history of the HUAC hearings. Understanding why a man like Harburg was banned from Hollywood gives you a whole new perspective on his "innocent" lyrics.
- Watch Finian's Rainbow: It’s a weird, psychedelic, political musical that shows Harburg’s true colors far more clearly than The Wizard of Oz does. It’s where his social commentary really takes center stage.
Yip Harburg passed away in 1981, but his work is more relevant than ever. In a world that often feels grey and divided, his "rainbow" remains the standard-bearer for the idea that things can—and should—be better. He wasn't just a songwriter; he was a dreamer who actually believed in the dreams he wrote about. And that, more than anything, is why the song still hits us so hard eighty years later.