Something Wonderful (song)

"Something Wonderful"
Song from The King and I
Published	1951
Writer	Oscar Hammerstein II
Composer	Richard Rodgers

"Something Wonderful" is a show tune from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I.

The song was first sung in the original Broadway production by Dorothy Sarnoff, who played Lady Thiang. Later, in the 1956 film adaptation starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner it was sung by Terry Saunders as Lady Thiang. Terry Saunders was the stage name for Terry Termini, a young woman who got her start out of the Brooklyn, New York area.

In the show, Lady Thiang, the King's head wife, sings this song to Anna Leonowens to persuade her to accept the King for what he is, despite his faults. In a sense, these lyrics have echoes of the song "What's the Use of Wond'rin'" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, which also deal with the issue of women standing by their husbands despite all their faults. Musically, the heavy chords that punctuate the accompaniment bear some pre-echoes of the song Climb Ev'ry Mountain from The Sound of Music. This is notable because both these songs are inspirational songs sung by the earth-mother characters, who have similar singing voices. Both songs are also the last songs heard in their respective shows, even though Something Wonderful is played as an instrumental rendition to underscore the final scene of the King at his deathbed.

Recordings

• Doris Day recorded this song for her 1960 album What Every Girl Should Know.
• Nina Simone has covered the song in her 1964 album Broadway-Blues-Ballads
• Barbra Streisand also covered the song on her 1985 quadruple-platinum album The Broadway Album as the finale of her King and I medley that also contains elements of "I Have Dreamed" and "We Kiss in a Shadow". The album containing Streisand's King and I medley hit the #1 position on the Billboard 200 album chart and sold over four million copies, per the BJS Music Guide.
• Carly Simon covered the song on My Romance, her 1990 album of standards.
• Liza Minnelli, on her 2002 live album Liza's Back