The waltz "Sobre las olas" is the best-known work of Mexican composer Juventino Rosas. It "remains one of the most famous Latin American pieces worldwide", according to the "Latin America" article in The Oxford Companion to Music. It was first published by Rosas in 1888. It remains popular as a classic waltz, and has also found its way into New Orleans Jazz and Tejano music. The piece remains popular with country and old-time fiddlers in the United States.
A Mexican film titled Sobre las olas was released in 1933. The Mexican film biography of Juventino Rosas, released in 1950 and starring Pedro Infante, is entitled Sobre las olas.
In the United States, Sobre las olas has a cultural association with circuses, funfairs, and trapeze artists, as it was one of the tunes available for Wurlitzer's popular line of fairground organs.
The music for Over the Waves was used for the song "The Loveliest Night of the Year", which was sung by Ann Blyth in MGM's film The Great Caruso.
The composition is featured in the films Stage Fright and Sunset Boulevard .
The song appears along with "Entrance of the Gladiators", as a medley, in the Circus tribe stages in '.
The song plays while riding a balloon in the Atari 2600 game, ', as well as its sequel, Super Pitfall.
This waltz is performed in the James Bond movie, Octopussy, in the scene in the circus in Germany.
On Sesame Street, Ernie often sang a song to this melody, called "George Washington Bridge".
The tune is featured in the RKO Radio Pictures feature When's Your Birthday? starring Joe E. Brown.
In the 1946 Warner Brothers cartoon, Daffy Doodles, Daffy sings "Sobre las olas" to the tune of "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter"
"Sobre las olas" can be heard in the score of Disney's 1944 filmThe Three Caballeros during "The Cold-Blooded Penguin" segment.
The song has also been used in Popeye cartoons.
A parody of this song is used as the bridge of the Dead Kennedys' track "Chemical Warfare," which appears on their 1980 album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.
On Barney & Friends episode, "Classical Cleanup", Mr. Boyd plays this song on the piano while Baby Bop dances and accidentally makes a mess in the classroom.
This is one of the songs featured in the video gameWii Music.
The composition can be heard as accompanying music during one of the circus scenes in Laurel and Hardy's film The Chimp.
The melody appears as a bridge between the verses of "Waltzing with Bears" which is one of the songs on the albumMinneapolis Concert by Ann Mayo Muir, Ed Trickett and Gordon Bok.
