Rainbow Connection is 40 years old

Because we can all use a touch of whimsy in this rough and tumble mostly unpredictable, sometimes inhabitable, but still wonderful world of ours, I would like to write about the song, The Rainbow Connection. The dreamy, wistful tune is now 40 years old. And I suddenly feel really very, very old.

The Rainbow Connection comes from the soundtrack of The Muppets Movie. The Muppets are this group of puppets created by Jim Henson for the children’s TV series Sesame Street. Kermit, the green pragmatic frog with a yellow collar was one of his early works and later became one of the star characters of Sesame Street. Also voiced by Henson, Kermit later headlined The Muppets’ own series with his leading lady, the very demanding diva, Miss Piggy.

The Muppets Movie was the feature length off-shoot of the TV show. It tells the tale of how Kermit goes off to Hollywood in pursuit of his dream of becoming a star. While on the road trip from his home in a Florida swamp, he is joined by other muppets like Miss Piggy, Animal, Fozzie Bear, The Great Gonzo, Grover and others.

The picture opens with Kermit in the swamp strumming his banjo and singing The Rainbow Connection. It is a sweet moment that is now rife with nostalgia and arouses longings for simple joys like watching rainbows in the sky. Of course, I now know there is no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow but children and grown-ups too have for a while felt enchantment while listening to Kermit’s song these past 40 years.

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows/ and what’s on the other side/ rainbows are visions but only illusions/ and rainbows have nothing to hide.

“So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it/ I know they’re wrong wait and see/ someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection/ the lovers, the dreamers and me.

“Who said that every wish/ would be heard and answered/ when wished on the morning star/ somebody thought of that and someone believed it/ and look what it’s done so far.

“What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing/ and what do you think we might see/ someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection/ the lovers, the dreamers and me.

“All of us under its spell/ we know that it’s probably magic/ have you been half-asleep and have you heard voices/ I heard them calling my name.

“Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors/ the voice might be one and the same/ I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it/ it’s something that I’m supposed to be/ someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection/ the lovers, the dreamers and me/ la da da…..”

As any songwriter will surely tell you, The Rainbow Connection is such a deceptively simple song that could have been born in an instant as in a lightbulb idea moment. That is the only way such magic could have happened. It proved to be so effective in the picture and became such a big hit.

 The song was even nominated for an Academy Award but lost out to It Goes Like It Goes from the movie Norma Rae. Does it not say much about the power of rainbows that nobody remembers It Goes Like It Goes anymore but everybody still enjoys listening to and also watching Kermit the Frog sing The Rainbow Connection. The video is on YouTube and is as magical as ever after all these years.

The Rainbow Connection was composed by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. The pair also did some of the songs in the Barbra Streisand version of A Star is Born. Williams co-wrote the Oscar and Grammy-winning love theme Evergreen with Streisand.

Williams is also the writer behind such well-loved songs like You And Me Against The World, Just An Old Fashioned Love Song, We’ve Only Just Begun, I Won’t Last A Day Without You, Rainy Days And Mondays, What Would They Say and others. He is also an actor who has appeared in many TV shows and in films like The Battle for the Planet of the Apes as Virgil the genius orangutan, The Phantom in Paradise, The Muppets’ Christmas Carol and others.

Great songs all of those but not as affecting or enduring as The Rainbow Connection.

P.S. Just a thought. I just hope that nobody greenlights the idea of coming up with a live-action version of The Muppets Movie. Much as I love the song, I do not think I can stand the sight of an actor in a frog suit singing The Rainbow Connection in a swamp.