Favorite Songs From Movies: If I Were a Rich Man

Tweet

Out of 397,000 people throughout Kentucky without power on March 3, 395,000 have their electricity back. What a blessing! Just in time for the colder weather this weekend. I’ll get to stay home and enjoy hot chocolate (the drink, not the band ). And how about we all enjoy another favorite song from the movies? If I Were a Rich Man - Topol Understand that I wrote this list two months ago, so there’s no way this could have been anything but a weird coincidence: Chaim Topol passed away this morning in Israel. While Zero Mostel made the role of Tevye popular in the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof, Topol was the star of the show in Israel and England. When the film was being cast, director Norman Jewison opted for Topol over Mostel for the lead role. (Here’s an interesting footnote: according to Picky Wedia, Frank Sinatra expressed interest in the role. That would’ve made this song “If I were a rich man, doo be doo be doo.” ) With the happy feeling of this song you’d think Fiddler on the Roof was a lighthearted movie. Oh, no. It’s ferociously sad, a look at a Jewish community being torn apart by pogroms in czarist Russia. It’s more sad because we’re seeing the hatred rearing its ugly head all over the world again. But this song has a universal appeal, the notion of what the poor think being rich is like (“one long staircase just going up and one even longer coming down”). Throughout the movie we see just how rich Tevye is without money. As Eddy Arnold sang in “The Richest Man in the World,” “what are riches but contentment after all.” Indeed. If I Were a Rich Man Written by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock Recorded by Topol From Fiddler on the Roof, 1971 For the town to see and hear: