brendan halpin

A few days ago, I was walking down the street near my work when I found myself behind someone listening to music on a bluetooth speaker. This isn’t that unusual. What is unusual was that they were listening to the Carpenters.

At least I thought it was the Carpenters. I cocked my head. Had they ever covered Rainbow Connection?

When I got back to my desk, I found that they had, in fact, covered Rainbow Connection. And then I started listening to a whole bunch of covers of Rainbow Connection, and I found that this is an incredibly difficult song to do well.

Paul Williams wrote the song for Kermit, and it plays the same role in The Muppet Movie that Over the Rainbow plays in the Wizard of Oz. Our protagonist longs for something more than Kansas, or, you know, the swamp and expresses this longing in a song.

The reason I think it’s so difficult to do this song well is that it’s really simple. It’s got a really simple melody, an incredibly brief bridge, and essentially no way for a vocalist to show off their tremendous singing skills. So rather than the dynamics of the song bringing the emotion out, the singer (and, to some extent, the arranger) have to do this.

Which is tough because the song strikes a kind of unusual emotional note. It’s longing, sure, but it’s also determined and hopeful. And melancholy. It’s a really interesting stew of emotions to try to convey in a simple melody, and, as I found out, most people aren’t up to the task. Here are my thoughts about some of the versions I listened to.

Kermit— The original and still the best. Perhaps because the Muppets are often operating on a couple of levels at once, Kermit, though not the most gifted singer in the world, communicates all the emotional nuance. The strings are restrained at the beginning and then swell louder at the end. The drum and bass only kick in after the bridge. And that banjo! The slow intro as Kermit warms to the riff, and its presence throughout the song are a really, I think, overlooked key to why this track is absolutely perfect.

Carpenters— Richard plays the banjo riff on the electric piano, and there’s some kind of toy xylophone going on. And Karen, one of the most gifted pop vocalists of all time, clearly has no idea what to do with the song. Sometimes she sounds like she’s smiling, condescending to the song, and sometimes she’s holding notes with vibrato, and her choices are all over the map. This was an outtake, and no wonder. It’s not Karen’s best work. And, again, this is the woman who famously nailed the “Superstar” vocal in one take.

Willie Nelson— Willie’s voice is absolutely perfect for this song. Or, anyway, Willie’s voice was once perfect for this song. And look, I’m not gonna judge Willie for his drug of choice, but the fact is that at some point you’ve gotta choose between smoking and singing. Willie chose the smoke, and his voice was pretty much garbage by the time he recorded this in 2000. This might be forgivable if he wasn’t making inexplicable choices with the melody and phrasing. Instead of embracing the simplicity of the melody and letting his voice do the work (well, hard to do when you’ve shredded your once angelic voice), he tries to do all this weird shit to carry the song. It doesn’t work.

Barbra Streisand featuring Kermit—Another talented singer who can’t find the song. To Barbra’s credit, she doesn’t do the Willie Nelson thing by trying to overcomplicate the song, but she just kind of sings it Broadway Style, which makes the whole thing fall flat because I don’t believe that this vocalist is longing for anything. The inclusion of what I think is Kermit’s original vocal on the track, weirdly compressed so he sounds odd and doesn’t upstage Barbra only serves to remind us that there’s a much better version out there.

Weezer, featuring Hayley Williams— Full disclosure: I fucking hate Weezer. I once described them as “Barenaked Ladies with distortion.” This version opens with an unadorned Rivers Cuomo vocal front and center, and, like the dude simply doesn’t have the voice to feature his vocal this prominently. Am I saying he is an inferior vocalist to a frog? I am. I nearly turned it off before the second verse. Glad I didn’t, because then Hayley Williams comes in and pulls the song out of its grave with an absolutely tremendous alto vocal. The harmony on the bridge is magical, and Cuomo and Williams sing the last verse in harmony (with the drums and bass kicking in after the bridge, as is proper), and a good time is had by all. I wish they’d let Hayley Williams sing the whole thing, but oh well. Maybe there’s a recording of her vocal track for the whole song somewhere…

The slow, breathy versions— This is a pretty popular way to cover this song. Which doesn’t make it suck any less. When you do this, you get all the melancholy and none of the uplift. Which is to say you totally miss the point of the song. I found Christina Perri and Sarah McLachlan’s versions unlistenable. Lisa Loeb’s and El Creepo’s are okay, but, again, I think it’s a fundamentally bad approach to the song.

Whiskey Shivers— A band I’d never heard of out of Texas that cursory research reveals has a bluegrass/americana/punk vibe that’s a big hard to pin down. Well, I’ll tell you what they did pin down—this song! Far more technically skilled vocalists failed where these guys succeded. Absolutely nailed it. And, of course, there’s banjo!

Me First and The Gimme Gimmes — Did the world really need a pop punk cover of Rainbow Connection? Apparently! Because apparently working in this milieu allows you to hit the emotional sweet spot between melancholy and hopeful. The great thing about this band (they do punk covers of….a lot of stuff) is that they never condescend to the song—though this isn’t a faithful cover, it’s a reverent one, and it’s my favorite.