“I’ve always taken ‘The Wizard of Oz’ very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I’ve spent my entire life trying to get over it.” This was vintage Judy, at once a dreamer and a hard worker, spending most of her life behind a microphone for one performance or another. She managed to augment her terrific natural talent with a preternaturally youthful image, and audiences bought in to the fairy tales brought up by her singing.

On this day, July 28, in 1939 Judy Garland recorded her most famous song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with the Victor Young Orchestra. The record sold well, but only once it was featured in the Wizard of Oz did it become a classic.

Garland’s tune of hope and longing for a better world struck a chord with audiences unmoored by the Great Depression and looking to Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation to turn things around. Yet it was almost cut from the movie — both MGM chief executive Louis B. Mayer and the producer Mervyn LeRoy thought it would slow down the action. At the insistence of the associate producer and Garland’s vocal trainer it was kept in, becoming one of the most iconic songs of the 20th century, and the one most associated with the singer-actress.