Supernumerary rainbows, monochrome rainbows, multiple rainbows, reflected rainbows, tertiary and quaternary rainbows, circumhorizontal arcs… for a guy who’s colorblind there certainly seems to be a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to the colors of the rainbow, and that’s just from the scientific perspective.  Rainbows glisten brightly throughout many of the world’s religions (e.g. where would Noah have been without one?) and whether Greek, Norse, Sumerian, Amazonian or countless others, they also play a supporting role in most mythological traditions. And then there’s the rainbow of folklore.

As we ease into St. Patrick’s Day (hey, I see McDonald’s is back with its Shamrock Shake) and those of a certain heritage take to the “wearing of the green” (which came about after St. Patrick purportedly used the three leaves of the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish pagans) invariably we are drawn to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow guarded by a Leprechaun.  How could someone NOT write a musical?

“Finian’s Rainbow” by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, with music by Burton Lane, was a 1947 Broadway production that ran for 725 performances (there was a revival in 2009).  In 1968 it was made into a musical film when studio head Jack Warner took a chance on a novice “hippie” director named Francis Ford Coppola.  The film starred Petula Clark, in her first Hollywood musical, and Fred Astaire in his last.

Today’s selection, with lyrics by the same man (Harburg) who brought us “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is now a nightclub standard. And who better to transport us over those emerald hills and streams than a woman born in São Paulo, Brazil and raised in Tokyo, Japan, the fine bossa nova singer, Lisa Ono.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Saturday 17 March 

Look to the Rainbow

 On the day I was born

Said my 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 hills and stream

Look, look, look to the rainbow

Follow the fellow who follows the dream

 T’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 whippoorwills singing

Beyond the next hill.

 Look, look, look to the rainbow

Follow it over the hills and stream

Look, look, look to the rainbow

Follow the fellow who follows a dream

 So I bundled my heart

And I roamed the world free

To the east with the lark

To the west with the sea

And I’ve searched all the world

And I’ve scanned all the skies

But I found it at last

In me own true love’s eyes

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

 Follow the fellow

Follow the fellow

Follow the fellow

Who follows the dream