Somewhere Over the Rainbow

The recording that carried Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's voice around the world was made almost by accident. One night in 1988 Iz phoned a recording studio at three in the morning, and engineer Milan Bertosa gave him fifteen minutes to get there. The first problem, Bertosa recalled, was finding something strong enough for the singer to sit on; building security came up with a large steel chair. Bertosa set up microphones, rolled tape, and Iz played and sang a medley of "Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World". By the engineer's account it was one take, and then it was over. Only two copies were made, one for Iz and one for Bertosa, and for years nothing happened. The next year Iz recorded an upbeat Jawaiian version for his debut album Ka ʻAnoʻi. Then in 1993, while finishing work on the album Facing Future, Bertosa played the old acoustic take for producer Jon de Mello, who decided to put it on the record. It grew slowly into a sleeper hit. Director Martin Brest's interest brought it into the 1998 film Meet Joe Black, and it went on to soundtrack 50 First Dates, Finding Forrester, ER, Scrubs and Glee. A shortened version on the posthumous album Alone in IZ World charted across Europe in 2010 and 2011, and in 2020 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry. A single unplanned take at three in the morning has since been watched more than a billion times on YouTube.