Eva had died two years previously from cancer, which only added greater emotional impact to what was already an enormously poignant version of this most wistful of songs. She sings the song as if she's been waiting a long time for salvation, but still believes there's a faint possibility and that's what she is clinging to.Īlthough it was first recorded in 1992, this version didn't reach public prominence until 2000, when Terry Wogan began playing it on his Radio 2 breakfast show. It feels deeply personal, which is partly why Eva Cassidy's stripped-to-the-bone acoustic version works so well.
So it's not just world-shaking events that Over the Rainbow can help to heal. The song was also recorded by the choir of Sandy Hook Elementary and Ingrid Michaelson, as a healing moment after the 2012 mass shooting at the school. Many artists have covered the song, from Willie Nelson to Rufus Wainwright to the cast of Glee, and it's been used by NASA to awaken their astronauts, who have most certainly gone over the rainbow. Her frail and trembling voice embodied both the fragility of hope in dark times, and the yearning that something good will eventually happen.īut it's not just her version that has touched people down the years. Garland's version later became an anthem of possibility for LGBT+ people, the "rainbow" in the lyrics matching the multicoloured flag of inclusion flown at Pride marches, and the term "friend of Dorothy" even becoming a knowing reference for gay men. She also performed it live for the troops in 1943. A special recording of the song by Judy Garland and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was pressed and sent out to American soldiers as a promise of better times to come. At the time Over the Rainbow was written, that confusion was caused by a huge financial slump, but by the time it came out, families were becoming caught up in World War II.
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