I first heard The Rainbow Connection when a teacher played it for me in the fourth grade, preparing us to sing it for a school pageant. It came into my life at a scary time for me. I had just come over the U.S./Mexico border undocumented a year before. I had started my first-ever year of school in the U.S. in the third grade in a small Catholic school. I didn’t speak a word of English and the school had no ESL program. I was painfully aware of how little I fit in. Kids being kids, they reminded me by making fun of my clothes and my accent. School is tough for a lot of kids, but it is particularly tough for the artsy, sensitive types who stick out. Midway through that year, the announcement was made that the school would close due to lack of enrollment. So in the fourth grade I had to start as a new student yet again in another school full of strangers.
By the fourth grade I had mastered the language enough to be getting the straight A’s I’d get through the rest of my grammar school career. I’d also deeply incorporated the feeling of being an outsider. That’s what I loved about The Rainbow Connection – it celebrated believing in your own inner knowledge. It instantly spoke to me.
When you’re young, you think that things come into your life only for a little while. And some things do. But some become a part of your world-view, of who you are. So it is with The Rainbow Connection, even all these years after I first learned its lyrics for a fourth grade pageant. “I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it, it’s something that I’m supposed to be,” still speaks to me with the same promise of fulfillment through listening to the secrets of my own heart.
The Rainbow Connection Lyrics
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
Some day 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 we 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’ve 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.
I like this cover of The Rainbow Connection by Sarah McLaughlin
