Somewhere Out There

Somewhere Out There A song that Fievel and Tanya both sing one night while Fievel is lost in New York City while temporarily watching over Reese, neither knowing that the other is also singing the song. Fievel sings because he knows his family is out there and he wants to find them, and Tanya sings because she refuses to believe that Fievel is dead. The song is performed by Phillip Glasser and Betsy Cathcart, who replaces Tanya's voice actress Amy Green for the song.

Linda Ronstadt also recorded a version of the song that was very popular when the film came out, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in March 1987..At the 30th Grammy Awards, the song won two awards, one for Song of the Year and the other for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television.

It also earned nominations for Best Original Song at the 44th Golden Globe Awards and the 59th Academy Awards, but lost both to Take My Breath Away from Top Gun. At the Academy Awards ceremony, Natalie Cole performed the song live with James Ingram.

Fievel:

Somewhere out there

Beneath the pale moonlight

Someone's thinking of me

And loving me tonight

Tanya:

Somewhere out there

Someone's saying a prayer

That we'll find one another

In that big somewhere out there

And even though I know how very

Far apart we are

It helps to think we might be wishing

On the same bright star

Fievel:

And when the night wind starts to sing

A lonesome lullaby

It helps to think we're sleeping 

Underneath the same big sky

Both:

Somewhere out there

If love can see us through

Then we'll be together

Somewhere out there

Out where dreams

Come true...

Background
Steven Spielberg, the producer of An American Tail, invited songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to collaborate with James Horner on four songs for the film's soundtrack, to be completed in a four week timeframe. The composers "felt no pressure to come up with a radio-friendly hit" and were surprised when Spielberg felt "Somewhere Out There" had Top 40 hit potential and recruited world renowned recording artists, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, to record a pop version of the song for the film's closing credits. In the main body of the film, "Somewhere Out There" was performed by Phillip Glasser and Betsy Cathcart in the characters of the anthropomorphic mice Fievel and Tanya Mousekewitz.

Produced by Ronstadt's regular producer Peter Asher, the single release of the Ronstadt/Ingram track debuted at #31 on the Adult Contemporary chart in Billboard dated 15 November 1986, crossing over to the Billboard Hot 100 dated 20 December 1986 with a #83 debut. In January 1987 "Somewhere Out There" returned Ronstadt to the Top 40 after a four year absence to eventually peak at #2 that March. The song was kept from the top spot by "Jacob's Ladder" by Huey Lewis and the News. One of the last commercially released 45 RPM singles to be certified Gold for United States sales of over one million copies, "Somewhere Out There" was also a major UK hit (peaking at #8), marking Ronstadt's first of three appearances in the UK Top 10.

Fievel Goes West
Tanya Mousekewitz also sings this song when she gets older, and is shown singing it out a window at the beginning of the film. But as she sings, she gets food thrown at her after two failed attempts and always getting interrupted on the lyric, "and loving me".  This is not unlike the old trope of a cat getting things thrown at it as it meows on a fence. The family actually uses this as a means of getting food, and Tanya is teased by Fievel about it.

Appearances in Other Media

 * Phillip Glasser performs a solo version of the song, to the music of Linda Ronstadt's version, on An American Tail: A Musical Adventure With Fievel & Friends.
 * The song was briefly sung at the An American Tail Live Show at Universal Studios theme parks, as a crowd song.