The Library of Congress has acquired rare music and lyric sketches from composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, who collaborated on the song score to the iconic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

The acquisition includes 35 manuscript items, including the first handwritten drafts of music and lyrics from some of the most beloved songs from the film classic, which starred Judy Garland. The collection also includes draft song lists and correspondence from the film’s director, Mervyn Leroy.

The crown jewel of the collection: the only lyric sketch for “Over the Rainbow” known to exist. “Someday I’ll wish upon a star + wake + find the darkness far behind me,” Harburg scrawled in pencil on a piece of yellow legal paper. This is believed to be the start of his creative process for a song that has proved timeless and universal, recorded by such varied artists as Garland, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Patti LaBelle, Barbra Streisand and Placido Domingo.

“Over the Rainbow” won an Oscar for best original song, while Herbert Stothart’s score won best original score – making The Wizard of Oz the first double song/score winner in Oscar history. Garland’s recording of “Over the Rainbow” was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1981 and the National Recording Registry in 2016. The full soundtrack album was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2006.

The film was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 1989.

“Over the Rainbow” topped the American Film Institute’s “100 Years…100 Songs,” a 2004 list of the top songs in American film from the 20th century. The Wizard of Oz ranked third (behind Singin’ in the Rain and the original West Side Story) on AFI’s 2006 Greatest Movie Musicals list.

Additional collection highlights include:

“Harold Arlen’s contributions to The Wizard of Oz have profoundly shaped American culture,” Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres, acting chief of the Library’s Music Division, said in a statement. “The donation of these manuscripts and papers represents a treasured addition in conjunction with our various Oz-themed holdings. This gift not only honors Arlen and Harburg’s imaginative genius but also preserves the legacy of the music that has captured the hearts of generations. The Library is grateful to the late Mrs. Arlen and the Arlen family for sharing these artifacts with the American people.”

A small display will be featured in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building beginning in October that features original music and lyric manuscripts from the creation of The Wizard of Oz and Wicked. These treasures from the Music Division’s Harold Arlen Collection and ASCAP Foundation Collection document the creation of the soundtracks to the iconic films inspired by Frank L. Baum’s classic novel The Wizard of Oz. This display will be on view from Oct. 23 through Jan. 7, 2026.

The recently acquired Wizard of Oz material joins the Harold Arlen Collection, which was donated by Arlen’s sister-in-law, Rita Arlen, beginning in 2022. That collection includes a musical sketchbook, a large notebook of music and lyric sketches for the musical House of Flowers (1954), hundreds of photographs and Arlen’s original typescript screenplay for The Wizard of Oz.

Additionally, the existing Arlen Collection contains correspondence from Arlen’s friends, family and colleagues including Harburg, Mercer, Streisand, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin, Truman Capote, Bing Crosby, Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Frank Sinatra.

It also includes several artworks such as three portraits by George Gershwin, including a rare self-portrait dated 1929 that Gershwin sent to Arlen. The Library also acquired Arlen’s original sketch for his searing torch song, “Stormy Weather,” and his manuscript for “The Man That Got Away” from Garland’s A Star is Born (1954).

Arlen’s other classic songs included in the 2022 collection include three other Oscar-nominated songs: “Blues in the Night,”  “Ac-Cent-Chu-Ate the Positive” and “The Man That Got Away,” as well as “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Get Happy,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” and “A Sleepin’ Bee.”

Arlen wrote the liner notes for Streisand’s Grammy-winning 1963 debut album. His notes brought him his only Grammy nomination – in the category of best album notes. (Most of his best work preceded the arrival of the Grammys in 1959). Streisand returned the favor in 1966, when she sang two songs on Arlen’s debut album, Harold Sings Arlen (With Friend). She was the friend, of course, and sang “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” (from Oz) and “House of Flowers.”

Harburg and Arlen were the first two recipients of the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s Johnny Mercer Award, that organization’s highest honor. They received the award in 1981 and 1982, respectively. Arlen received a trustees award from the Recording Academy posthumously in 1987.

The Harold Arlen Collection joins dozens of other songwriter collections in the Library’s Music Division. These include the manuscripts and papers of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe, Billy Strayhorn, Leonard Bernstein, Jeanine Tesori, Leslie Bricusse, Burt Bacharach, Harry Chapin and Judy Collins.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online.

Relationship experts have endlessly parsed the body language and non-verbal cues between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce during the singer’s album release appearance on the Kansas City Chief’s tight end’s New Heights podcast two weeks ago.

Kelce’s broad smile and longing looks at his girlfriend of two years said it all. But if you really want to know how the three-time Super Bowl champ feels about Swift, just ask his dad. At Sunday night’s (Aug. 24) premiere of the new six-part ESPN series The Kingdom about the Chiefs’ pursuit of a Super Bowl three-peat, People magazine caught up with Travis’ dad, Ed Kelce, to ask him about how his youngest son’s joy steams from his relationship with the pop superstar.

“Taylor,” Ed Kelce said when asked to pinpoint the source of Travis’ happiness. “There’s no question about it.” Ed could see it when he tuned in to the two-hour New Heights pod, dubbing the appearance “so good… I think it was awesome. It was great to see them go back-and-forth. They’re two people obviously very much in love.”

People also caught up with family matriarch Donna Kelce at Sunday’s premiere, where she had high praise for the New Heights appearance as well. Donna said she also tuned in and she dubbed the record-breaking Aug. 13 appearance “really, really eventuful… It was authentic. It was just something I think everybody was thrilled to see, and it was a very loving podcast.”

Swift and Kelce went official with their romance in Oct. 2023 and have since made a habit of showing up for each other at important events, with Travis flying out for a number of Eras Tour shows and Taylor posting up in the family box at more than a dozen Chiefs games. Swift broke the internet when she went on New Heights to reveal the details of her upcoming 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels famously runs a tight ship. He doesn’t like it when the cast cracks up during sketches and he expects the show’s musical acts to stick to the script and play the songs they’ve rehearsed for that week’s show.

So, when Sinead O’Connor veered way off during her moving a cappella October 3, 1992 performance of Bob Marley’s “War” on SNL — which she ended by ripping up a picture of then Pope John Paul II and saying “Fight the real enemy” — the singer was reportedly blanket-banned from the NBC network and would never again appear on SNL; O’Connor died of natural causes in July 2023 at age 56.

In a rare interview, Michaels was asked by Puck if he had to think twice about bringing attention to one of the show’s most controversial moments by having Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard cover O’Connor’s most famous hit: her take on the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.” The pair took on the ballad in February during the SNL50: The Anniversary Special celebration and Michaels said it was a no-brainer.

“No,” he said when asked about whether he had any worries about revisiting that controversial moment. “If [O’Connor] were still alive, I would have asked her to sing that song. But it was represented by Miley singing it with so much power.”

The famously stoic Michaels said he “teared up a couple times” during the emotional half-century celebrations earlier this years, saying he wasn’t weeping, per se, but that “a lot of other people were,” especially when Paul McCartney closed the show with the Beatles’ “Carry That Weight.”

Flashing back to the show opener with Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter dueting on “Homeward Bound,” Michaels said that even after 50 years of SNL, he was nervous about whether the first gen-now gen collaboration would work. “Earlier anniversary shows, we just did the one show, but I thought a year ago that we could do that [concert the Friday night before at Radio City Music Hall],” he said. “I spoke to Paul Simon about it, and then he got a call from Sabrina Carpenter, who wanted him to do a song with her on her special. And he said, ‘I don’t think I want to do that. Would you take that to Radio City?’ So [the opening] started back then, it was in my head. And then it migrated.”

He knew for sure, however, that he wanted to close with McCartney. “For lots of reasons. The emotion,” Michaels said. “Once he was there, I toyed with him opening, but there was something to closing with ‘Golden Slumbers’ that felt powerful to me. And Paul [Simon] and Sabrina were gonna do ‘Homeward Bound,’ which worked perfectly. It resonated with the audience that was there because for a lot of them, [SNL] was a home for five to 10 years. [The pairing] let the audience know what the show is. It’s now and it’s then.”

As for whether he was holding out for Taylor Swift — who has been on the show six times, including a cameo on the 40th anniversary special — to participate if she’d wanted to, Michaels said that was never in the cards. “She and Travis [Kelce] came to Pete Davidson’s show, the first show of the season before, and I talked to her about it then,” he said. “But I knew that her [Eras] tour was mammoth. And I thought, ‘If she can come, she’ll come, and if she can’t, she can’t.’”

SNL will return to the air for its 51st season on Oct. 4.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are coming home in early 2026.

The alternative rock legend and his formidable band will embark on a tour of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand next January and February, their first dates in these parts since 2017.

Produced by Supersonic, the 10-show trek will visit a string of outdoor cultural spots, kicking off Jan. 17 at Fremantle Park, WA. Along the way, Cave’s Wild God Tour will visit Adelaide Entertainment Centre, The Domain Sydney, Brisbane’s Victoria Park, Melbourne’s Alexandra Gardens, and head east for two shows at TSB Arena in Wellington, the New Zealand capital.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, Aug. 29 at 10am local time from nickcave.com.

“I can’t wait to get to Australia and New Zealand with The Bad Seeds and to bring you our epic Wild God show,” Cave comments in a statement. “It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve missed both Australia and New Zealand very much. It will be a wild and mighty joy.”

The alternative rockers’ setlist will include songs from their 18th and latest studio album Wild God, alongside songs spanning their four-decade career, a statement reads.

Cave has no shortage of classics in his repertoire. In the U.K., his adopted homeland, the band has landed seven top 10 albums, including Wild God, which opened and peaked at No. 5 last year. Cave was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007.

Produced by Cave and Bad Seeds/Dirty Three collaborator Warren Ellis, and mixed by David Fridmann, Wild God hit No. 66 on the Billboard 200, one of his nine titles to impact the albums chart.

Wild God, released through Cave’s own label Bad Seed, via a new, exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Play It Again Sam, an imprint of the independent [PIAS] label group, was nominated for a raft of awards, including two Grammy categories (best alternative music album and best alternative music performance), best alternative rock record at the Libera Awards and the 2024 Australian Music Prize.

Before heading Down Under, Cave will complete his pan-European solo jaunt with a string of shows in Germany, Luxembourg and elsewhere.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ‘The Wild God Tour’ Australia And Aotearoa New Zealand 2026
Tickets on sale Friday, August 29 at 10am local time from nickcave.com.

Presented by Supersonic Australasia

Jan. 17 — Fremantle Park, Perth WA
(Presented By The City Of Fremantle)

Jan. 20 — Adelaide Entertainment Centre, SA

Jan. 23, 24 –The Domain Sydney, NSW

Jan. 27 — Victoria Park, Brisbane, QLD

Jan. 30, 31, Feb. 1 — Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne, VIC

Feb. 5, 6 — TSB Arena, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
(In association with Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts)