While in New York a couple of weeks ago, I attended a performance of the Broadway revival of West Side Story. I’m not sure if it was a matter of sitting in the balcony, or that the 1961 film casts such a large shadow (having watched the big-screen version countless times), but I didn’t feel emotionally connected to what was happening on the comparatively small stage below. So I Ieft the theater that night disappointed by the production, a feeling magnified by the knowledge that this revival was directed by the musical’s original librettist, 91-year-old Arthur Laurents.

But even as the evening’s performance didn’t move me, the songs composed by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim remain as resonant as ever. West Side Story resides in the pantheon of American theater for a reason, of course. And one of the show’s most unforgettable tunes, “Somewhere,” has been covered countless times by artists across all musical genres (from Phil Collins to Devo), with three very different versions ranked as my favorites (none of which happen to be from Phil Collins or Devo).

The first time I recall hearing the song outside of the film soundtrack was on Barbra Streisand‘s The Broadway Album. The closing track on her 1985 Sondheim-worshiping set, Streisand’s “Somewhere” was set not in New York City, but in the darkest reaches of outer space.

Released as a single that November, “Somewhere” reached #5 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, and #43 on the Hot 100. Some folks feel that David Foster’s synthesizer-heavy production sounds much too dated now, but perhaps because I encountered this cover of “Somewhere” as an impressionable youth, La Streisand’s powerhouse performance renders it wonderfully timeless to me:

Purchase Barbra Streisand – “Somewhere” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.

Several years later, picking up the Aretha Franklin box set, Queen of Soul, I discovered another wonderful take on “Somewhere.” Recorded for 1973’s Hey Now Hey (The Other Side Of The Sky), and produced by Quincy Jones, Aretha serves up six minutes of soulful, hopeful loveliness, the centerpiece of which is a jazzy saxophone break.

You best believe there’s a place for us. Unless you’re fool enough to doubt the Queen of Soul:

Purchase Aretha Franklin – “Somewhere” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.

Fast-forwarding to 1997, Pet Shop Boys recorded “Somewhere” to promote their residence at the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End. The 7-inch version of the dance duo’s cover makes room for two other tunes from West Side Story, opening with a bit of “One Hand, One Heart” (on the Extended Mix, the usually vocally-reticent Chris Lowe recites the lyrics) and closing with “I Feel Pretty.”

Also incorporated into the track is dialogue from the 1993 urban drama Menace II Society, which Neil Tennant explained in the liner notes to 2001’s Bilingual/Further Listening 1995-1997:

“We used the film samples because we wanted to set the song — which comes from West Side Story, which is Romeo and Juliet in the ghettos of New York — in the Los Angeles riots … The Leonard Bernstein estate weren’t very keen on us putting that dialogue on, and in fact, we had to write and explain it to them. They refused at first, but eventually they agreed.”

Their version of “Somewhere” does all come together quite nicely. Tennant and Lowe commit to a performance that’s totally, uniquely Pet Shop Boys. It’s at once both urgent and distant. Dramatic and intimate. Earnest and wry. Essential and yet utterly frivolous. Hear here:

Purchase Pet Shop Boys – “Somewhere” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.

In a freer time and place, Messrs. Bernstein and Sondheim might have turned it out this way the first time around. Consider this evidence of that alternate universe: