Tuesday
Nov222011
The Covers The Dreamers And Me
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:23PM [Editor's note: It's Muppet Week! I asked Team Experience to share their favorite Muppet memories. Like JA, I'm 1000% in love with this 1979 Oscar Nominee for Best Song. Feel free to sing along. - Nathaniel]
.
JA from MNPP here. Let's just get this outta the way right up front - "The Rainbow Connection" is my favorite song of all time. It's also part of one of my earliest memories, and definitely my very first movie memory - I couldn't have been more than three or four and I'd been dropped off at a babysitter's house for the first time ever while my parents took off to do god knows what. I was miserable, horrified, I distinctly remember the babysitter staring at me with terror in her eyes as I bawled like a maniac (so much time has passed and the only thing that's changed is now it's my boyfriend's face giving me that look).
.
But it all changed as soon as the babysitter turned on the TV and whaddya know, there was The Muppet Movie just starting. Some little green frog was warbling his little tune on his little banjo on his little log in his little swamp, and magic - Muppet and movie alike - carried me away, and I've never looked back. When my parents showed up before the movie was over I refused to leave until it ended - a cinemaniac (with a secret felt fetish, shh) was born.
.
Thirty years or so have passed since that life-defining moment, and I will still break into immediate awestruck tears when I hear it. Lines like "I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm s'posed to be..." actually honestly helped me through the coming out process in my early 20s. The debt of gratitude for forming a basic piece of who I am - and a really basic decent part, I think I can say truthfully - that I owe to Jim Henson and songwriters Paul Williams and Kennth Ascher is beyond measure.
.
So with The Muppets out in theaters this week, I figured we could take a look back at that song and the thirty years that it's been a living breathing beautiful thing in our lives. There are literally dozens of these to pick from but here are my five of my favorite covers!
.
.
Reader Comments (10)
That Dixie Chicks version is beautiful!!!
The Carpenters sang "The Rainbow Connection"!! I would basically listen to only three albums until I was 10: The Muppet Movie soundtrack, Carpenters Singles and the Star Wars soundtrack. If only Chewie made a guest appearance on this track...I just might die happy now.
I feel like "The Rainbow Connection" (and the Muppets in general, really) is one of the few perfectly good things I've had the pleasure of encountering. It's just so decent and innocent and loving. I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets all teary-eyed and whatnot when that banjo starts strumming.
Streisand recorded this song too, but it was shelved... it would be interesting to listen to it. She recorded it back in the 70s because her son loved it so much.
That song is all sorts of amazing. Is there a performance of them performing it at the Oscars? DID they perform it at the Oscars?
Glenn I just now scanned thru the entire 1980 Oscars as it is on YouTube looking for the performance - Kermit did perform the song on the broadcast - only to see after I'd looked thru all 14 videos of it that the person who uploaded the whole show had to edit out "The Rainbow Connection" because of copyright problems! It would've been in this portion of the show here. Damn that sucks! I was able to find this picture of the performance and it looks magical! Boo hiss I want to see it!
"The Rainbow Connection" is one of my favorite songs to. Aside from it being a beautiful song, something about it just speaks to growing up in the 70s.
although 'it goes like it goes' is a fine song, 'the rainbow connection' is a freakin' classic - just another example of the oscars getting it wrong
par3182 -- but at least they were both totally worthy Oscar nominations (!) you don't see the category given such fine music regularly these days. I mean THREE classics in one year (Theme from Ice Castles!!!;)
WINNER: Norma Rae: David Shire (music), Norman Gimbel (lyrics)
For the song "It Goes Like It Goes".
NOMINEES
The Muppet Movie: Paul Williams, Kenny Ascher
For the song "The Rainbow Connection".
10: Henry Mancini (music), Robert Wells (lyrics)
For the song "Song from 10 (It's Easy to Say)".
Ice Castles: Marvin Hamlisch (music), Carole Bayer Sager (lyrics)
For the song "Theme from Ice Castles (Through the Eyes of Love)".
The Promise: David Shire (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics), Marilyn Bergman (lyrics)
For the song "Theme from The Promise (I'll Never Say 'Goodbye')".
man.....i don't think karen carpenter really every got the recognition she deserved with that voice of hers - which is really up there w streisand & garland. probably because a lot of what she sang was syrupy. too bad life ended the way it did for her. once she broke off from her brother - i think her career would have turned around.