Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s ukulele-tinged version of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”–which Jason Castro paid homage to on last night’s American Idol–is already at No. 14 on the iTunes Store’s digital-tracks chart, sandwiched in between Danity Kane’s “Damaged” and a new single by Simon Cowell fave Leona Lewis, and at No. 7 on the Amazon MP3 Store’s chart. The song hit the top 20 of the Hot Digital Tracks chart back in 2004 thanks to its appearance on the 50 First Dates soundtrack. In other Idol chart news, crazed David Archuleta fans have pushed Robbie Williams’ “Angels” into iTunes’ top 50 and Amazon’s top 100, a movement which I hope will eventually help them see the light, i.e. the fact that Archuleta’s kind of a charmless goofball and no match for Williams’ admittedly overpaid awesomeness. [Amazon]
He probably won’t win it all, but the fact that Jason is the one who is driving the songs he does up on the charts really ought to count for something.
@bcapirigi: Yeah. I remember sitting on the floor in front of my TV that night, crying like a baby. The song still gets me misty Stupid NBC, stupid emotional manipulation.
PS: That episode is also memorable (to me, at least) because NBC ate the fine so that Dr. Greene could yell “Shit!” when he fell out of bed and couldn’t get himself to his feet.
Re: Greene’s death on ER, I always thought the saddest thing about that was when Carter read the letter to everyone around the desk, and then got to the last page that was written by Elizabeth. Greene’s actual death episode that followed seemed a little long.
looking at the itunes top 100 makes me weep for the future of humanity.
My fleeting interest in Idol this season left me quite some time ago, but I’m in favor of anything that gets Iz out there to more people. Now if only some of his original stuff would get some airtime…
I’ve never seen 50 First Dates. Or Finding Forrester, Meet Joe Black, or a single episode of Scrubs or Life on Mars, but I swear I’ve heard that song at the end of some movie, and now it’s bugging me. I’m also not thinking of this, which I just found on Wikipedia:
In 2002, the song was used to powerful effect in the closing scenes of Anthony Edwards’ last appearance in E.R. as Dr. Mark Greene, in the episode ‘On The Beach’.
Hooray for Robbie Williams! What is he up to anyway? He so crazy.
@bcapirigi: What about Fred Claus?
Also, I prefer the Scrubs version.
i still prefer the original judy garland number.