Story Behind the Song: 'The Rainbow Connection

hi i'm bart her Nashville Songwriters Association and this week for the Tennessee and a very special story behind the song with words family the Paul woods oh you buddy Poli and welcome Paul but you've just been so important to the history of American music it's very fabric and it's very culture as a composer or a songwriter and now it's an advocate for creative writers to turn the bass cap and thank you for all you've meant to all of us greatest honor I've ever been given is to stand up and say that the kids that are starting out we're making music today deserve to make a viable living with their creative hard creative work one of the most recognizable songs on the planet I had saw a friend a few years back go to Hungary and nobody spoke a word of English where he was and they were singing two American songs que sera sera and the rainbow yeah I love that so it's been almost 35 years do you remember the day you wrote it oh I remember the day I tell it how it got born well it began you know that this song this song was part of the score for the Muppet movie yet and I had been to England to do the muffin the muffins show for Jim Hanson and it was a really nice relationship from the very beginning I was joking about the fact that because I'm sure to be great to be working with these little tiny Muppets Villa fellow-creatures you know and and all of a sudden these huge Muppets come out that are like eight feet tall when I was there we had a good time Jim asked me if I would write the songs for an HBO special called Emma daughters young man Christmas which I wrote the songs for by myself and then I got the I got the Pearl I got the big job he said would you write the songs for the Muppet movie The Muppets were gonna do a feature about how the Muppets got together and he asked if I would if I would write the songs I had a moment of brilliance and I said yes but I should not do it alone let me bring Kenny Asher and it was brilliant composer Kenny and I had written most of the songs for a stars born together and Kenny and I sat down in my living room with Jim Hanson with Jerry Juhl the screenwriter Frank Oz the great Muppets here actor-director and talked about this this movie and hand where the songs were gonna go and of course the the the first song and the movie is an iamb song it's which the song of where we discovered Kermit and he's sitting in the inn in the swamp and what do you have you have you have light you have water you have you know you have the elements of refraction you have rainbows so we said we decided to write a song that would involve some some of those elements our model was that may amazing moment in Pinocchio when Jiminy Cricket in the nighttime takes off his top hat climbs up into the window it looks at the heavens and sings when you wish upon a star makes no difference who you are oh my god it's like it opens up your heart and there's a spiritual awareness and that's what we wanted to write for Kermit long answer to it - a great question well writing for projects that you're one there's not not all the songwriters or composers in the sense that they write for projects you've done both songs come to you and you you write them inspirationally that way and when you write for projects you've always been amazing but it can turn out either way did you and Kimmy know that day what you had you know we had such immense respect for for Jim Henson's brilliant spirit I just wrote a blog web of a website called gratitude and trust calm I just wrote a blog called the elegance of kindness and the elegance of kindness is about Jim Hansen and what it was like to work for Jim I'll tell you a quick story about working with Jim from that day when we met to talk about the Muppet movie we talked about where the songs were gonna go what they'd be about it was just very loosely sketched out and we walked back to Jim's car while we're walking back I said you know Kenny and I won't won't surprise you with this stuff we're not gonna we're not gonna ambush you we'll let you hear the songs along the way while we're working on them and Jim said it was classic Jim Henson he said oh no that's all right I'm sure they'll be wonderful I'll hear them in the studio that's a love there's a level of trust in that that is so immense I don't I don't think they're the Muppets were making the very first feature and and there's so much riding on the success of this it says it doesn't it says something about what he thought of Kenny Asher and I but it says more about what he thought of his own choices that he trusted his heart he trusted that he'd chosen the right people to do this he gave us permission to write whatever we felt and we gave him the Rainbow Connection but did you know that day is so infectious I remember the first time I ever heard it he just songs that do this to you there's there is an energy to that they don't down I knew that we had a chance to write something and and what we just essentially did is we wrote ourselves into a terrible corner why are there so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side rainbows are visions the only illusions rainbows have nothing to hide I went oh that's brilliant now we've written herself into a corner here where we've we've denied them any magic and rainbows but then we turned it around so we've been told and some choose to believe it I know they're wrong wait and see someday we'll find it someday we'll find it in other words Kermit doesn't have the answers the heart of the song Bart to me is in the lines who said that every wish would be who said that every wish would be heard and answered if wished on the morning star somebody thought of that and someone believed it look what it's done so far I think that in in that line is the essence of what is my philosophy and I hope it was accurate for Kermit is that is that there is just immense power and faith that there's more beauty in the questions than there are in the answers someday we'll find it say you know who said that every wish would be heard an answer to wished on a morning star somebody thought of that and someone believed it look what it's done so far says that if you have a creative thought and you have somebody to believe in what you're doing you have the element of faith involved then we can do anything it also says something about the process of writing songs because you know it says you know Nashville Songwriters Association International it all begins with a song it all begins with a songwriter I would go one step above that it all begins with some amazing creative source he does they were just you know fortunate enough to tap into do you remember the first time you heard Kermit do it no well I produced the Elvis so I went into the studio with Jim and Jim started to sing it and it wasn't working and it was like there was something that was just a little off and I said to Jim why don't you get Kermit and he said ok and he went and he got Kermit we put up a little things where he could put Kermit up and criminy another level of trust though man well you know what it went it went when there's something you know you've standing in a conversation with Jim Henson and Frank Oz there are three of you there but if Frank has Miss Piggy with him and Jim Henson has Kermit there are five of you in the conversation and I didn't need Jim Henson I needed Kermit and one he picked up Kermit you know and I've always said I've got felt in my DNA I felt the change and when he's saying why are there so many you know the song is written in Kermit's speak it is well you know if somebody pointed out to me of Richard carpenter said why didn't you go why daddy but I D I said well because karma doesn't talk like that why are there so many songs of all right so we wrote it in Kermit speak and Jim Henson delivered a performance excuse me Kermit delivered a performance that is that has survived and and for me too at this point I've done to us with Jason Mraz and Willie Nelson and Sarah McLaughlin me first and the Gimme Gimmes all the Dixie Chicks these wonderful wonderful acts were recorded the song it's a tribute to the song he Armand did it with Debbie Hare Rama did it with Debbie Eric but I think that every time it's done it's a bit of a tribute to Jim Henson and what he delivered to people he never wrote he said there were no righty we're not writing for children we're writing for the child in all of us and so I think whenever the song is performed and if people love it I think what they're what they're recognizing is some of Jillian some of Jim Henson's pure spirit could even you have imagined the profound reach and magnitude in the line it's touched yeah you know I I don't know that I that I do it at this point I think that that that requires claiming authorship and I'm not sure that I at this point of my life you know - there's a point probably 25 30 years ago when I to go on you know I was hoping that it would have but the fact is the longer I'm alive a little less I have to do with the song in a lot of ways and you've written a special I guess liner notes for the upcoming anniversary 35 years the nearly thirty fifth a know it's so muddy the 35th anniversary edition but it's an early 35th anniversary of it edition of they released a blue way of the muppet blu-ray version of The Muppet movie and they rereleased the soundtrack which I produced with Jim Anson and wrote with Kenny Asher and they asked me to write the liner notes and you know in the line around said tell that story about Jim sayin okay well here in the studio it's a it's a tribute to Jim and it's a tribute to the fans the reason that the Muppets are such monstrously successful bits of felt as they are today is also because the fans have stuck to the buffets and and stuck with them and I live in gratitude and trust I'm so grateful for the life I've been given through my songwriting I'm especially grateful the NSA I and you know why but I can tell the rest of the world that as I was maybe seven years sober I'm 23 years sober now I was about seven years sober felt totally disconnected to the music world and was working in around recovery and the like and and and I can't was asked by NSA I to come to Nashville and and be be a part of a celebration called tenpence South where I was honored as a quoted quote on quote iconic songwriter and there's something in the water in Nashville and more importantly there was something in the way you treated me the way that the people that and Nashville treated me and the way that the songwriting community through NSA I treated me that all of a sudden I wanted to write a song again I wanted to do this again and and it the fact that I wound up on the board of directors at ASCAP a lot of as president just really like to reelected for a third time you know the some of the headwaters of that have to come nici we talked about falling off a bike at that trip you wrote a song that was number one later that year for Diamond Rio so John Besner and I sat down and talked about how would we know good we both turned our lives around do it and due to the fact that some young lady said I'm out of here because I can't be around to watch you what you died and and we wrote the good news is I'm better for the time we spent together the bad news is you're gone for diamond real great song this week the story behind the song for The Tennessean from a national treasure mr. Paul Williams in the Rainbow Connection

Channel: Tennessean

Views: 363,272

Keywords: 2932105048001, story behind the song, Paul Williams, nashville

Id: ka2DTKjrknc

Length: 11min 57sec (717 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 03 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/pastaMac]

Jim Henson hired Paul Williams to create the music for his new Muppet movie, and gave him complete creative control. While recording in the studio, Jim was to sing The Rainbow Connection, and Paul felt it wasn't working. Paul asked Jim "Why don't you get Kermit," that is bring Kermit the frog into the studio. After this change, Paul discovered it made the difference. Fred Rogers [Mister Rogers] understood this phenomena as well. It is highlighted in the 2018 film Won't You Be My Neighbor? Fred would use different characters/puppets to gain insight in people's feelings, problems, shames, hopes etc. He recognized that people would reveal things to characters they might not share with Fred, even though he was sitting right beside them.

[u/kovaht]

Just brilliant. When I was a kid I'd always fast forward the music, but now that I'm older, kermits rainbow connection is actually fucking mesmerizingly beautiful. A tremendous song.

[u/[deleted]]

And you didn't link it?

[u/horses_for_courses]

How bizarre that the first time I've seen Paul Williams since the late 1970s .... and he's talking about Kermit the frog.

And he looks just about the same, with a better haircut. Very talented man, funny in his day.

[u/notadoggerok]

I remember seeing this clip years ago. This is how the magic happens. Nice.

[u/tangnapalm]

This guy is crazy in Rules of Attraction

[u/Bergeroned]

The guy's got Star Trek cred, too, having starred in an episode of Voyager (that I haven't seen) where he's the leader of a planet that's never heard music before.

[u/The_Patriot]

There's a great documentary called, "Paul Williams Still Alive" - even if you don't know anything about the man (and especially if you do), the movie is well worth watching.