"Rainbow Connection" analysis

Slightly different from my normal style, bear with me...

I have been infatuated with the song “Rainbow Connection” lately, as it appears in the Muppet Movie. At first, I saw it as a basic hippie song- peace, flower power, mysticism, but lately I have been leaning towards another analysis of it, of the song as a coded LGBT advocate song. Let me go through the lyrics and explain this interpretation to you.

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows?”

This is the hardest line in the song to parse, and admittedly I have not come up with a solution to it. Moving onwards…

“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”

Now, the bedrock of my interpretation is that rainbows refer to LGBT people. Whether this was intended or not does not matter, it is true in the context of this interpretation.

This posits that a belief has spread among the population - that rainbows are vapid, they have no substance. They mean nothing. This reflects ignorant sentiment about gay people especially - bigots or the misinformed will claim that homosexuality is “not natural”, and that “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”. This being said, this verse also sets up the fact that the (probably gay) narrator does not buy into this. He portrays people who believe this as some sort of “other”, an ideological bloc distinct from his worldview. Moving on…

“And I know they're wrong, wait and see
Some day we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me”

And this is the thesis of the piece, if there is one in this winding and slightly nonsensical song. The singer believes that things will get better, a quintissential optomism at the heart of any social movement. He is reflecting the optomism that spurred the Stonewall riots, that knitted the AIDS quilt, that helped gays become mainstream.

“And who said that every wish?
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
And somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it's done so far”

In this verse, the singer goes off against religion as being baseless. Although religious scholars certainly do not see God as a “cosmic santa”, that is how God, the same God that many interpret to be against homosexuality, is known to many. Kermit says that this God myth sprung up because “somebody thought of that/and someone believed it”- not a very good bedrock for a moral system. This verse targets the religion that is so often hostile to vulnerable rainbow people, especially youths, who might be ostracized by their family and community on the basis of religious propaganda. This is Kermit’s reaccion against that indoctrination - a poetic criticism of the foundations of religion.

“What's so amazing?
That keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?”

This is a continuation of Kermit’s diatribe against religion, claiming that looking for God is useless. He is no more real than astrology, and looking for him is akin to looking blindly at the stars, instead of focusing on real life and the ground.

“Have you been half asleep?
And have you heard voices?
And I've heard them calling my name
This is the sweet sound
That called the young sailors
The voice might be one in the same

And I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm supposed to be”

And here comes the meat of why I interpret Kermit to be gay in this song. What might the “sweet song/that called the young sailors” be? As the Dutchman from the Simpsons would tell you, Homosexuality! Without young women to engage in intercourse with, men generally… adapt. This, of course, applies to sailors, as they are stuck on a boat with nothing but a crew full of men for months on end. The homosexuality thesis is only strengthened by the line that goes “It’s something that I’m supposed to be”- most gay people take being gay as part of their core identity (I certianly take being Bi as a big part of myself!), it only makes sense that the voice that “called the young sailors” - homosexuality, would be enticing Kermit to stop repressing it and embrace his own life.

And that is my take! Feel free to discuss in comments down below. I know this is unedited and unrevised, it was an off-the-cuff thing, very different from my usual format. See you in the next post (or podcast…)!