# Somewhere (song)
**Somewhere** is the yearning ballad from the 1957 musical *West Side Story*, with music by [Leonard Bernstein](https://www.edgepedia.org/leonard-bernstein) and lyrics credited to [Stephen Sondheim](https://www.edgepedia.org/stephen-sondheim), sung offstage during a dream ballet in which the lovers and their warring friends imagine a place of peace where their love is not forbidden.[1](https://www.westsidestory.com/somewhere) • [2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) The Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogs it as a 1957 English-language song (chanson) by Bernstein (1918–1990), extracted from the musical, for voice with symphony orchestra.[3](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb13991343b)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Work | 1957 song from *West Side Story*, English language, for voice with symphony orchestra[3](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb13991343b) |
| Credit | Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyric by Stephen Sondheim; © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim[1](https://www.westsidestory.com/somewhere) |
| Stage function | Sung by an offstage singer over the fantasy ballet, after Tony confesses to Maria that he has killed her brother[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) • [4](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390) |
| Melodic opening | Minor-seventh leap on the words "There's a…"[5](https://www.carnegiehall.org/uploadedFiles/Resources_and_Components/PDF/WMI/Soundfly_Suppliment_AW.PDF) |
| Borrowings | Quotes Beethoven's *Emperor* Concerto, Richard Strauss's *Burleske*, and Tchaikovsky's *Swan Lake*[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) |
| On screen | Tony and Maria sing it in the 1961 film, dubbed by Jimmy Bryant and Marni Nixon; Rita Moreno sings it in Spielberg's 2021 remake[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) |
| Standards status | With "Maria" and "Tonight", one of the three *West Side Story* songs that became classics of the American musical theater[4](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390) |
## Identification and background
The title "Somewhere" attaches to several songs, so identification rests on two authoritative records. The official *West Side Story* site, the rights-holder's page, credits music to Leonard Bernstein and lyrics to Stephen Sondheim under the copyright line © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim, copyright renewed, published by Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC.[1](https://www.westsidestory.com/somewhere) The BnF authority record confirms the 1957 date and the work's extraction from the musical.[3](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb13991343b) A published four-part mixed-chorus arrangement by William Stickles carries the same Bernstein music and Sondheim lyric, marked to be performed "Slowly".[6](https://cdn.gulbenkian.pt/musica/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/05/LB-somewhere.pdf)
## Composition and authorship
Bernstein wrote the music, and the official credit assigns the lyric to Sondheim. One documented nuance complicates the division of labor: Bernstein had begun writing the song's words before Sondheim joined the project, and a short-story fragment of his, "Somewhere, far below the horizon…", anticipates the lyric's closing cascade "Somehow, someday, somewhere", so the *Financial Times* essay judges it quite possible that Bernstein steered the lyric in that direction.[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) The rights-holder's printed credit remains Sondheim's.[1](https://www.westsidestory.com/somewhere)
The song's first reception was not warm. On [BBC Radio 4](https://www.edgepedia.org/bbc-radio-4)'s *Soul Music*, Stephen Sondheim and Bernstein's daughter Nina discussed writing the lyric and the relatively bad critical response the song initially received; the same program records how the song, which yearns for a better world, came to hold special significance for many listeners.[7](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076bpw)
## Music and dramatic function
**The melody.** AllMusic describes the song as a single, long-breathed melody, paced slowly and seething with desire, beginning softly with an ascending overall contour; in its second statement the music swells toward the highest soprano ranges and reaches a powerful climax capturing the epic sense of hope in the words "Somehow, someday, somewhere", while the ending is truncated to impart the feeling that the hope may go unfulfilled.[4](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390) The Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute classroom material highlights the distinctive opening interval on the lyrics "There's a…" as a minor seventh, a large leap for a song to open with, and notes a repeated ascending major second on the final "Somehow, Someday, Somewhere!", a kind of musical cousin to that interval.[5](https://www.carnegiehall.org/uploadedFiles/Resources_and_Components/PDF/WMI/Soundfly_Suppliment_AW.PDF)
**The borrowings.** The melody quotes Beethoven's *Emperor* Concerto: Bernstein takes the slow movement's opening minor-seventh leap, but where Beethoven lets the final note of the phrase sink back and close neatly, Bernstein lifts the syllable "us" up a whole tone, leaving the phrase unresolved.[8](https://www.classicfm.com/composers/bernstein-l/beethoven-melody-west-side-story/) The song also quotes a longer phrase from the main theme of Tchaikovsky's *Swan Lake*, its dotted-quaver contour generally accepted as a nod to the ballet theme.[8](https://www.classicfm.com/composers/bernstein-l/beethoven-melody-west-side-story/) The *Financial Times* adds [Richard Strauss](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-strauss)'s *Burleske for Piano and Orchestra* to the list and quotes the composer Edward Barnes, who called Bernstein's assembly of these fragments a combination of unconscious and conscious creativity.[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html)
**Dramatic function.** In the original 1957 Broadway production the song was sung by a singer offstage and accompanied a ballet expressing Tony and Maria's yearning for a better place where their love will not be forbidden; *The Guardian* describes the accompanying fantasy ballet, in which the lovers and their warring friends imagine a place of peace and "time together with time to spare".[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) • [9](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/26/somewhere-the-aching-sound-of-west-side-storys-plea-for-utopia) The official lyric sets out that imagined world: "Peace and quiet and open air / Wait for us, somewhere", and "We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way".[1](https://www.westsidestory.com/somewhere) AllMusic places the number after Tony confesses to Maria that he has killed her brother in a brawl, and notes that in the show it is sung by "A Girl", a character outside the story, though some productions give it to Maria as a soprano solo or as a Maria–Tony duet.[4](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390)
## On screen: 1961 and 2021, and in revival
The screen adaptation of *West Side Story* released in 1961 took home 10 Academy Awards, with Tony ([Richard Beymer](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-beymer)) and Maria ([Natalie Wood](https://www.edgepedia.org/natalie-wood)) performing the number in the film, their voices supplied by Jimmy Bryant and [Marni Nixon](https://www.edgepedia.org/marni-nixon).[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) In Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake, "Somewhere" is sung by Rita Moreno, who had won one of those 10 Oscars for her role in the original film; Spielberg chose Reri Grist's Broadway recording when he named the song on *Desert Island Discs*.[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html)
Revival productions have treated the number differently. Ivo van Hove's Broadway revival kept the song but cut the ballet.[9](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/26/somewhere-the-aching-sound-of-west-side-storys-plea-for-utopia) Sarah Frankcom's Manchester production went further in the other direction, reassigning the number from an anonymous soprano to Anybodys (Emily Langham), the Jets' tomboy hanger-on, remaking what had been a distant love song into, as the paper put it, "a song for and about everyone".[9](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/26/somewhere-the-aching-sound-of-west-side-storys-plea-for-utopia)
## Recorded versions and use beyond the theater
The song has drawn singers from several traditions. Notable recordings include [Aretha Franklin](https://www.edgepedia.org/aretha-franklin) on *Hey Now Hey* (1973), [Tom Waits](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-waits), for whom it was the unexpected opener of his 1978 album *Blue Valentine*, Barbra Streisand, to whose expansive vocal the song lends itself on her hit 1985 album *The Broadway Album*, and a 1997 single by the [Pet Shop Boys](https://www.edgepedia.org/pet-shop-boys).[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) On Bernstein's own operatic recording, the ethereal but anonymous offstage soprano part was sung by Marilyn Horne.[9](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/26/somewhere-the-aching-sound-of-west-side-storys-plea-for-utopia)
Its life outside the theater has often been tied to public mourning and aspiration. On *The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson*, the day after Martin Luther King's murder in 1968, [Diana Ross](https://www.edgepedia.org/diana-ross) performed the song and her monologue was changed to include an emotional reference to King.[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) Cynthia Erivo performed it at a Kennedy Center fundraiser in 2017.[2](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html) Across these uses the song has come to be seen as an anthem for tolerance, the *Guardian* observes.[9](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/26/somewhere-the-aching-sound-of-west-side-storys-plea-for-utopia)
## How it compares with the score's other ballads
Among the many numbers in *West Side Story*, AllMusic identifies three that have become classics of the American musical theater and have been recorded separately or together numerous times: "Maria", "Tonight", and "Somewhere".[4](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390) "Somewhere" stands apart, voiced by someone outside the story and detached from the stage action into a danced dream.[4](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390)
## References
1. [Somewhere — West Side Story, official site](https://www.westsidestory.com/somewhere)
2. [Somewhere — Leonard Bernstein's classic is studded with 'borrowings' from other composers, Financial Times](https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/somewhere.html)
3. [Notice de titre musical "[Somewhere]", Bibliothèque nationale de France](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb13991343b)
4. [Somewhere, song (from "West Side Story"), AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/composition/somewhere-song-from-quot-west-side-story-quot--mc0002600390)
5. [Classroom Supplement, Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute](https://www.carnegiehall.org/uploadedFiles/Resources_and_Components/PDF/WMI/Soundfly_Suppliment_AW.PDF)
6. [Somewhere from *West Side Story*, four-part chorus arrangement by William Stickles (printed score), Gulbenkian](https://cdn.gulbenkian.pt/musica/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/05/LB-somewhere.pdf)
7. [BBC Radio 4 — Soul Music, Somewhere](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076bpw)
8. [Leonard Bernstein borrowed a famous Beethoven melody for West Side Story's most famous song, Classic FM](https://www.classicfm.com/composers/bernstein-l/beethoven-melody-west-side-story/)
9. [Somewhere: the aching sound of West Side Story's plea for utopia, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/26/somewhere-the-aching-sound-of-west-side-storys-plea-for-utopia)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Musical-theater, film, television, and game songs › Stage musical show tunes*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license