Somewhere Over the Rainbow Ukulele Chords - EasyUke

There is a version of this song that exists because a very large Hawaiian man called a recording studio at 3:30 in the morning, begged them to let him in, sat on a steel chair borrowed from a security guard, and played once. One take. No rehearsal. No second chance. The engineer kept the tape for five years before anyone else heard it. When they did, everything changed.

Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's recording of Somewhere Over the Rainbow didn't just become popular. It redefined what the ukulele was capable of. Before Iz, the ukulele was a novelty instrument, a vacation souvenir, something people strummed at luaus. After Iz, it was the instrument that could make grown adults stop mid-conversation and feel something they hadn't expected to feel.

Here's how to play it.

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The Story Behind the Song

The original Somewhere Over the Rainbow was written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland sang it. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. And then, for most of the next five decades, it was primarily associated with a sixteen-year-old girl in a blue dress and a pair of ruby slippers.

What Iz did to it was extraordinary. In 1988, on a quiet night in Honolulu, he called recording engineer Milan Bertosa from a bar where Bertosa had been hanging out with friends. "Please, can I come in? I have an idea," Iz said. It was 3:30 in the morning. Bertosa had never worked with Iz before and barely knew who he was.

He said yes. He set up the studio — found a steel chair from building security for Iz to sit on, put up microphones, did a quick soundcheck. "The first thing he does is Somewhere Over the Rainbow," Bertosa remembered later. "He played and sang, one take, and it was over." Bertosa gave Iz a copy and kept the master tape for himself. He played it for family and friends over the years because it was, he said, "that special."

Five years passed. In 1993, Bertosa was hired as engineer for Iz's next album, Facing Future. A few days before the end of the sessions, he felt something was missing. He dug up the cassette from 1988, played it for the producer, and it was added to the album. Iz died in 1997 at 38 years old. His recording has since accumulated over 147 million streams on Spotify. When Google celebrated what would have been his 61st birthday in 2020, they made a two-minute animated music video of the song — viewed by millions of people who had never heard of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole before that morning.

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Somewhere Over the Rainbow Ukulele Chords

Iz's version uses five chords: C, Em, Am, F, and G. If you've been working through the four core beginner chords, you know four of them. Em is the only new chord — and it's a gentle, intuitive shape.

The main chord sequence: C — Em — Am — F — C — G — Am — F. This repeats throughout most of the song. Learn this sequence and you've got the backbone of the entire piece.

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How to Play Somewhere Over the Rainbow on Ukulele

Step 1 — Get Em clean

Em is the only chord here you might not know yet. Two fingers, frets 2 and 3 on adjacent strings. Get it landing cleanly on its own before adding it to the sequence. The move from C to Em — the opening chord change of the song — is the one to practice first.

Step 2 — Practice the opening sequence slowly

C — Em — Am — F. One strum per chord, very slow, every chord clean. This four-bar sequence is the heart of the song. When it feels manageable, add C — G — Am — F to complete the full progression.

Step 3 — Choose your approach: strum or fingerpick

Iz's version uses a gentle fingerpicking pattern — the thumb picking out a bass note while the fingers pluck the higher strings. This sounds beautiful but requires chord shapes to be automatic first. For beginners, a slow waltz strum (D-d-d) works completely well and captures the feel of the song without the additional challenge of fingerpicking. Work toward fingerpicking once the chords are solid — it's worth the effort, but don't rush it.

Step 4 — Slow down more than you think you need to

This song is almost impossible to play too slowly. Iz's version breathes — every chord has space around it. When beginners rush it, it loses exactly what makes it special. Play at the speed where every chord lands fully before moving to the next. The song can handle silence between chords far better than it can handle rushed, sloppy changes.

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The Strumming Pattern

For a strummed version, use a gentle waltz pattern — the song is in a flowing 4/4 but the phrasing feels like it breathes in long phrases rather than strict bars:

D — du — du

Soft, unhurried. The emphasis on the first downstroke, the rest flowing from it. Keep the wrist loose. This is not a driving song — the strumming hand should feel like it's floating rather than hitting.

For fingerpicking: the classic pattern for this song has the thumb playing the G string (lowest pitch) on beat one, then the index, middle, and ring fingers plucking the C, E, and A strings in sequence. That alternating bass-and-melody approach is what produces the distinctive rolling sound of Iz's arrangement. My strumming and picking guide covers how to develop fingerpicking once your chord shapes are solid.

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Why This Is the Song Most Associated With the Ukulele

Before Iz, the ukulele had a reputation problem. It was associated with Hawaiian tourism, novelty acts, and Tiny Tim. It was not an instrument people took seriously. Iz's recording changed that in a way that no amount of marketing ever could have — because it demonstrated, in three and a half minutes, what the instrument was capable of emotionally.

The C-Em-Am-F-G progression is a classical sequence — it appears in countless songs across genres. What Iz did was strip everything else away. Just voice and ukulele. No band, no production, no arrangement. The rawness of the recording — made in one take at 3:30 in the morning on a cassette — is inseparable from its emotional power. It sounds like it was caught rather than made.

When you play this song on a soprano ukulele, you're playing the same instrument that produced that recording. Not the same model. The same type. The same four strings, the same tuning, the same brightness. That continuity matters more than it sounds like it should.

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When to Try This Song

Week three — once all four core chords are solid and you've spent a few days with Em. The slow tempo is forgiving, and the chord changes come with enough space that transitions don't need to be fast. What they do need to be is clean. A buzzing chord in this song is more audible than in faster, busier songs — because the space around each chord lets every imperfection breathe.

If you want to build up to it gradually, the path runs through Happy Birthday (3 chords, week one), Can't Help Falling in Love (Em introduced, week two), and then this. That sequence builds exactly the chord knowledge this song requires.

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Full Somewhere Over the Rainbow Ukulele Tabs on Ultimate Guitar

The chords and strumming above are everything you need for a beautiful version of this song. For Iz's specific fingerpicking arrangement in full tab notation, Ultimate Guitar has several community-rated versions that break down the picking pattern exactly.