About The Rainbow Connection

"Rainbow Connection" is a song from the 1979 film The Muppet Movie, with music and lyrics written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. The song was performed by Jim Henson – as Kermit the Frog – in the film. "Rainbow Connection" reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1979, with the song remaining in the Top 40 for seven weeks total. Williams and Ascher received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 52nd Academy Awards. In 2021, "Rainbow Connection" was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

Williams and Ascher, who had previously collaborated on several songs for the 1976 film A Star Is Born, were tasked with writing the songs for The Muppet Movie. For the song that became "Rainbow Connection", Jim Henson told them that the opening scene should feature Kermit the Frog by himself, singing and playing the banjo. Williams and Ascher wrote most of the song fairly quickly at Williams' house, but got stuck trying to think of appropriate words for the part in the chorus that eventually became the phrase "the rainbow connection"; they were looking for a way to tie in the chorus to the song's theme of rainbows. As they sat down for dinner with Williams' then-wife, Kate Clinton, they explained to her their predicament of looking for a phrase that would provide "a rainbow connection", then realized, in the course of explaining the problem to her, that the phrase "the rainbow connection" would itself be a good fit. Williams and Ascher used "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio as inspiration for the song. Williams has said that his favorite lyrics in the song are "Who said that every wish/ Would be heard and answered/ When wished on the morning star?/ Somebody thought of that/ And someone believed it/ Look what it's done so far", because they imply that "there's power in your thoughts". He also noted that the lyrical phrasing was written specifically with Kermit's speech patterns in mind.