Lyric Sketch to “Over the Rainbow” and Other “Oz” Artifacts Are Now With the Library of Congress

In 1938, composer Harold Arlen went for a drive with his wife to curb some writer’s block. It worked: When they returned home, Arlen had conjured the melody to “Over the Rainbow,” the centerpiece song to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz.

This week, the Library of Congress announced their acquisition of Arlen and lyricist E.Y. Harburg’s materials from their work on that seminal film. Rather than storing the items, the LOC is making them available to the public for a limited time.

1. The Wizards of The Wizard of Oz
2. The LOC’s New Acquisition
3. How to See the Arlen Collection

The Wizards of The Wizard of Oz

Arlen and Harburg went to work on The Wizard of Oz in 1938. While the film had the rich world of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its many sequels to draw from, producers still needed original musical interludes. The duo were reportedly paid $25,000 (roughly $573,000 today) to spend 14 weeks on the songs. After crafting “Lollipop Guild,” “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” “We Welcome You to Munchkin Land,” and others, Arlen and Harburg stalled when it was time to create a centerpiece performance for star Judy Garland. That’s when Arlen decided to hop in his car.

“It was on that drive that—out of the blue—came the entire melody of ‘Over the Rainbow,’” Arlen biographer Walter Rimler told NPR in 2015. “He always kept with him a sheet of music paper that he called his jot book. He pulled it out. He had a pencil. He wrote it down. And we have ‘Over the Rainbow’ as a result.”

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The song later earned the Academy Award for Best Original Song, one of just two Oscars the film won. (The other was Best Original Score.) It lost the Best Picture statue (then called Outstanding Production) to Gone With the Wind.

The LOC’s New Acquisition

Arlen passed in 1986. In 2022, Arlen’s sister-in-law, Rita, began donating his archival material to the Library of Congress. In addition to Arlen’s personal copy of The Wizard of Oz screenplay, there were photos, personal correspondence, lyric sketches, and other materials from his classic song library, which featured his collaborations with lyricists Harburg, Ted Koehler, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, and others. Among them:

• “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive”
• “Blues in the Night”
• “Come Rain or Come Shine”
• “Get Happy”
• “Stormy Weather”
• “It’s Only a Paper Moon”
• “The Man That Got Away”
• “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”

The new material consists of 35 artifacts, including Oz lyric sketches, a brainstorming sheet of “Oz possibilities,” and the actual Oscar for “Over the Rainbow.”

The highlight, though, is Harburg’s handwritten lyric sketch for “Over the Rainbow,” which the Library says might be the only one from the song known to exist. Written in pencil on yellow paper, it reads:

Some day I’ll wish upon a star + wake + find the darkness far behind me

Away above the chimney tops – where troubles melt like lemon drops

That’s where you’ll find me

The lyrics would later be finessed, with “darkness” becoming “clouds,” but the impetus was enough to deliver perhaps the best-known song ever penned for film.

How to See the Arlen Collection

A number of Arlen’s artifacts, including the handwritten “Over the Rainbow” sketch, will be on display in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., from October 23 through January 7. For those who can make it, it’s an opportunity to get a closer look at the early sparks of creativity that contributed to the making of an American classic.

“Harold Arlen's contributions to The Wizard of Oz have profoundly shaped American culture,” Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres, acting chief of the Library’s Music Division, said in a statement. “This gift not only honors Arlen and Harburg’s imaginative genius but also preserves the legacy of the music that has captured the hearts of generations.”

The Library would be wise to keep security tight, as Oz memorabilia tends to come up missing. A pinafore dress believed to have been worn by Garland during production was donated to the Catholic University of America in 1973 but was misplaced and lost until 2021; a pair of ruby slippers stolen in 2005 were recovered and sold at auction in 2024 for $28 million.