Video: Hear Barbara Cook and Barry Manilow Give the Most Heartbreaking Rendition ever Made of Finian Rainbow’s “Look to the Rainbow” (Also Hear The Irish Tenors Sing, “How are Things in Glocca Morra?”)

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Long ago, I would hold a diapered newborn in my arms, and serenade him daily with “Look to the Rainbow,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Soliloquy” (My Boy, Bill), and other entries from The Great American Songbook.

Alas, the diapers are all gone, and the once-newborn now towers over his old man.


I thank the person who posted this pair of recordings to Youtube, but the images are Kitsch City, and he butchered the lyrics to “Look to the Rainbow,” and left out half of “How are Things in Glocca Morra?”

Finian’s Rainbow hit the Broadway stage in 1947, and ran about 21 months.

Its story told of a segregationist senator in the state of “Missitucky,” the Irishman who stole a pot of gold from a leprechaun (Finian) and said leprechaun’s daughter (Sharon), and the leprechaun who has followed the thief to Missitucky to get it and his daughter back.

Finian’s Rainbow was a crazy marriage of Irish whimsy (composer Burton Lane) and Jewish communism (lyricist and book co-author E.Y. “Yip” Harburg) that sounds dreadful on paper, but the songs are beautiful, and the socialist and communist Broadway theatergoers who made it a hit thought it all worked beautifully.

You have to keep in mind the sociology of the time and place. As the great Roger Starr (1918-2001) recounted in The Rise and Fall of New York City (1985), the high point of a hit Broadway play just after the war, was when a black actor and white actress kissed on the lips.

Thus did vicarious, sexual titillation blend with moral sanctimony for well-to-do theatergoers who kept blacks—excepting their housekeepers—at more than arm’s length.

Finian’s Rainbow wasn’t filmed until 1968. Although it co-starred Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, and Tommy Steele, it bombed. I wonder why?

The picture is today largely a curiosity based on its young director, who would go on to dominate the pictures of the 1970s: Francis Ford Coppola.

Barbara Cook (1927-2017) died last year two months shy of her 90th birthday, and it’s a wonder she lasted as long as she did.

During the 1950s, the pretty, shapely young singer-actress was one of Broadway’s brightest stars. However, she then dropped out of sight, hit by depression and alcoholism, and then binged on food until she hit something like 400 pounds.

Although Cook never appeared to take off the weight, she went on the wagon and beat her depression, and her lovely soprano voice seemed to survive unscathed. Well into her eighties, she reigned as New York’s biggest star of cabaret.

Fortunately, we can enjoy the show’s beautiful songs, without its crazy story.

Warning: “Look to the Rainbow” ends at about 4:15, with “How are Things in Glocca Morra?” following, without a break.
 


 

Romi M. Panlilio
Published on Apr 12, 2010

"Look to the Rainbow" and "How Are Things In Glocca Morra" from the Broadway Musical "Finian's Rainbow". Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane. The 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances. Several revivals and a 1968 film version which starred Fred Astaire and Petula Clark followed
 

Look to the Rainbow
Music by Burton Lane
Lyrics by E.Y. Yip Harburg
(Corrected by Nicholas Stix)

Cook: On the day I was born,
Said me father, said he,
I've an elegant legacy
Waiting for ye,
Tis’ a rhyme for your lips,
And a song for your heart,
To sing it whenever the world falls apart.

Look, look, look to the rainbow,
Follow it over the hill and stream,
Look, look, look to the rainbow,
Follow the fellow
Who follows a dream.

Manilow: Was a sumptuous gift to bequeath to a child,
Oh, the lure of that song kept her feet running wild,
For you never grow old, and you never stand still,
With whipper wills singin’ beyond the next hill.

Manilow: Look, look, look to the rainbow,
Follow it over the hill and stream,
Look, look, look to the rainbow,
Follow the fellow who follows a dream.

Cook: So I bundled me heart,
And I roamed the world free,
Manilow: To the east with a lark,
Cook: To the west with the sea.

Manilow: And I searched all the Earth,
Cook: And I scanned all the sky,
Together: But I found it at last,
In my own true love's eyes.

Together: Look, look, look to the rainbow,
Follow it over the hills and stream,
Look, look, look to the rainbow,
Follow the fellow who follows the dream.

Cook: Follow the fellow,
Together: Follow the fellow,
Follow the fellow,
Who follows the dream.
 

How are Things in Glocca Morra?
(Yip Harburg’s lyrics via Google, corrected by Nicholas Stix)

I hear a bird,
A little Derry bird,
It well may be,
He's bringing me
A cheering word.

I hear a breeze,
A River Shannon breeze,
It well may be,
It's followed me
Across the seas.

Then tell me please.
How are things in Glocca Morra?
Is that little brook still leaping there?
Does it still run down to Donny Cove,
Through Killybegs, Kilkerry and Kildare?

How are things in Glocca Morra?
Is that willow tree still weeping there?
Does the lassie with the twinkling eye
Go smiling by, and does she walk away,
Sad and dreamy there, not to see me there?

And I ask each weepin’ willow,
And each brook along the way,
And each lass that comes
A-sighin’ too ra lay,
How are things in Glocca Morra this fine day?