The Wizard of Oz songs on vinyl

Well, the 80th anniversary of the premiere of MGM's The Wizard of Oz is today. Looking back over my blogs about Oz vinyl records, I noticed the soundtrack album of the movie was unrepresented.

Well, let's fix that, shall we?

In 1940, the songs from The Wizard of Oz were released onto 78rpm records for fans of the film to purchase. However, this was not a soundtrack album. A soundtrack release is made of selections from a film's music, sometimes mixed differently or even using different recordings of the music designed to be listened to without the film.

This release, from Decca Records, featured new recordings of the songs, and only one of the cast could be heard: Judy Garland, singing "Over the Rainbow" and "The Jitterbug." The rest of the singers on the records were members of the Ken Darby singers, under his direction. Victor Young and his orchestra performed the music. The other songs on the records were "The Merry Old Land of Oz," "If I Only Had A Brain" (but it also included "If I Only Had A Heart" and "If I Only Had The Nerve"), "We're Off To See The Wizard" and "Munchkinland" (the entire song sequence, filling both sides of a 78 record).

These recordings used some additional lyrics for the songs not used in the film. These were added to commercial sheet music to help the songs be performed outside of the context of the movie. To help tell the story of the song during "The Merry Old Land of Oz," a soloist in the role of Dorothy says "We can't see the Wizard like this, we're all dirty." The Tin Man says he's rusty and the Scarecrow says he's lost a lot of straw, while the Lion says he's afraid of water. The chorus sings "Here we rush with soap and brush to make you clean and fair!" This line has been added to some other versions of the song, for example at the first OzCon karaoke in 2018, I was surprised to see it in the onscreen lyrics for the version of the song I performed.

This collection of records sold well for Decca and in time was reissued as a pair of 48rpm records. Later still, it made side one of a new album that paired the songs with Decca's recordings of a similar collection for Disney's Pinocchio. And that is the version I own.

The first true soundtrack recording of the movie was released in 1956, but unlike modern soundtrack albums, it presented dialogue from the film along with the songs. This meant it included a lot of the score, but it was clipped very short to reduce the audio from 101 minutes to a mere 40 minutes. A number of scenes got the cut, and oddly, the cuts eliminated any mention of the film's iconic Ruby Slippers. For the modern Oz fan, the original version of this album can be very jarring to listen to. Still, for many years, to hear the original cast of the film sing the songs without seeing the film in theaters or on television, creating an audio recording from TV or somehow owning a film print (looking at you, Rob Roy MacVeigh), this was your only option.

This version of the album would be reissued many times with very different album artwork over the years until compact disc came along. It was rebranded "The Story and Songs of the Wizard of Oz" and expanded. My personal vinyl copy seems to be a rather common one that was reissued well into the 1980s.

In 1995, Rhino Music released two new soundtrack albums for MGM's The Wizard of Oz on compact disc. The big one was a 2-disc set that I've profiled before, but there was also a single disc version that in time has become more widely available. This one featured the main titles overture, the songs of the film—opting for extended versions when available—, the Cyclone music, "The Jitterbug," the deleted Emerald City reprise of "The Witch Is Dead!" and the finale music. This version of the soundtrack is now the standard version and has been released on various CDs, digital and even some special vinyl releases.

Do you have these versions of the MGM songs in your collection? In what format? Go ahead and fire away in the comments.