Young Girl Sings 80-Year-Old Song So Perfectly Judges Had To Turn Around From The First Notes

For young and emerging musical artists, it can be quite difficult to sing in front of a small group of friends and family. Add to that a live audience and millions of viewers at home, it can seem like a miracle when child performers can perform with ease.

A young girl named Anna proved herself worthy of the big stage when she sang along to the classic hit ‘Over the Rainbow’. The impressive performance took place during an episode of the Dutch version of “The Voice Kids” in 2016.

Not only did Anna sing the song beautifully and fearlessly, but she also showed her bravery by choosing such a traditional and famous song. Although many people know the song as it was performed by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole in 1993, the track actually dates back to 1939.

The moving song was originally written by EY (Yip) Harburg and Harold Arlen for actress Judy Garland’s role as Dorothy in the hit movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Although the song is over 80 years old, it retains a loyal following among fans. Anyway, it’s impressive that Anna chose this song to try.

The budding artist probably spent hours working on each note until she reached absolute perfection. Her hard work shows when she takes the stage and sings the song.

With a live band, young Anna’s performance puts many professional singers to shame, it’s so good. In fact, just seconds into the performance, coach Marco Borsato presses his button, allowing the mentor to spin his chair to reveal the young woman behind that beautiful voice.

Be sure to read to the end of this article to see the full video 🙂

Soon after, the other mentors, Dutch rapper Ali B and singer Ilse Delange couldn’t help but hit it off too. In other words, it only takes a few seconds for Anna to enchant listeners with her angelic voice. Of course, the audience also seemed enthusiastic about the young girl’s talent, and almost everyone gave Anna the ovation she deserves at the end of her performance.

Unfortunately, the competition is often tough on these talent contests, so Anna didn’t make it to the show’s finals. Instead, one of Delange’s mentees Esmée Schreurs, won the top prize in the fifth season in 2016, receiving a €25,000 scholarship.

That said, Anna’s performance, which has already reached millions of viewers on YouTube, will go down in history as one of the most impressive recent renditions of “Over the Rainbow”, joining other talented musicians like Kamakawiwoʻole , Garland and Frank Sinatra.

But how, you will ask me, did such an old song become so popular? After all, it’s not often that the singers of “The Voice Kids” choose songs from decades and decades before they were born, let alone it being a song from a foreign country. for Anna.

The success story of “Over the Rainbow” is all the more unlikely given that one of the songwriters, Harburg, grew up impoverished on New York’s Lower East Side in the late 19th century, as reported The New York Times in the songwriter’s obituary in 1981. Growing up, Harburg quickly showed songwriting abilities, parodying songs and performing in school shows when he was still than a young boy.

Although Harburg continued to write while in college, where he met and sat next to legendary lyricist Ira Gershwin, the young entrepreneur earned a science degree and focused on developing a electrical supply company with one of his buddies from college.

“For the next few years we made a lot of money and I hated it,” Harburg explained in an interview with Max Wilk, quoted in The Times article. But then the Great Depression hit, destroying the business that Harburg had built. But strangely, the entrepreneur-turned-songwriter attributes at least part of his success to the economic deprivation he faced during the Depression.

“The capitalists saved me in 1929, when we were worth, oh, about a quarter of a million dollars. Bang! Everything exploded,” Harburg told Wilk. “I found myself with a pencil and I finally had to write for a living. As I once said at Studs Terkel, what the Depression was for most people was a lifeline for me! »

One of Harburg’s best-known Depression era hits is “It’s Only a Paper Moon” which initially failed to catch on but was later popularized during the latter years of the Second World War II through recordings of American treasures like Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby.

But Harburg’s most memorable hit is “Over the Rainbow,” which was voted the best song of the 20th century in a National Endowment for the Arts survey in 2001, according to MTV.

Still, the legendary track almost didn’t make it into “The Wizard of Oz” because executives thought the song was slowing down the movie, as Columbia News detailed. Fortunately, one of the film’s associate producers, Arthur Freed, put his job on the line and told one of the studio executives, “The song stays, or I’m gone.”

Studio executive Louis B. Mayer nods and replies, “Let the boys have that damn song. Put her back in the movie. It can’t hurt.”

Freed probably felt vindicated upon the release of “The Wizard of Oz,” as the song quickly achieved iconic status.

“It might not seem obvious that a song sung by a young girl at the start of a fantasy film would take on a life of its own,” said Walter Frisch, professor of music at Columbia University. But Frisch explained that the famous ballad has a certain universality. “The song’s mixture of hope and anxiety allowed people to read their own concerns into it,” he added.

Since the song’s debut in 1939, the track has taken on a life of its own, making appearances on TV shows and movies, as well as the many different renditions of phonograph artists like Kamakawiwo’ole and Eva Cassidy.

When Democracy Now asked Harburg’s son, Ernie, in 2012 why he thought the track was so successful, he explained that “it’s the story of a little girl who wants to get by. She has problems, and she wants to go somewhere. The rainbow was the only color she saw in Kansas. She wants to go beyond the rainbow. But then Yip added something that makes it a Yip song. He said, “The dreams you dare to dream do come true.” You see ? That word “challenge” lands on the note, and it’s a perfect thing, and it generated courage for people for years afterwards, you know? »

Anna’s inspiring performance, and the many to come after her, is proof that Ernie was right.

What do you think of Anna’s rendition of this classic song? Do you have a favorite version? Let us know, and be sure to get some feedback from your friends, family, and fellow “Wizard of Oz” fans.

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