If I Were A Rich Man (song)

If I Were A Rich Man (song)

"If I Were a Rich Man" is a song 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 (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.