If I Were a Rich Man

"If I Were a Rich Man" is a show tune from the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. It was written by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock. The song is performed by Tevye, the main character in the musical, and reflects his dreams of glory. The title is inspired by a 1902 monologue by Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish, Ven ikh bin Rothschild (Yiddish: װען איך בין ראָטשילד; lit. “If I were a Rothschild”), a reference to the wealth of the Rothschild family, although the content is quite different. The lyric is based in part on passages from Sholem Aleichem's 1899 short story "The Bubble Bursts." Both stories appeared in English in the 1949 collection of stories Tevye's Daughters. Analysis The Oxford Companion to the American Musical wrote that the song includes passages of "cantor-like chanting", and is "the most revealing of the many character numbers". The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey explained that the song contains a greater number of Jewish "commonplaces" than any other number in the score, and added the song does twofold: it "offers such a strong dose of idiom early in the show [which] is good for the overall unity", and the "important dramatic function" of introducing the central character of Tevye through song. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe explains that the song is based on a monologue from the stories of Sholem Aleichem entitled "If I were Rothschild", in reference to the wealthy Jewish banking family. The Grammar Devotional likens the phrase "if I were a rich man" to the Cowardly Lion's "if I were king of the forest" in The Wizard of Oz; both songs involve a tongue-in-cheek comparison between the character's actual condition and the one they imagine. It has been suggested that the song is inspired by a Hasidic folk song. Lyrics and style