We Learn Something New Everyday - Even If It Is Something "Old."

I am sure as you were growing up you must have heard it said many times: You learn something new everyday.  I heard this all the way through elementary school, all the way the through junior high, and all the way through high school.  If my teachers weren't repeating this slogan, my parents were.  Then people at work, and my friends and loved ones.  And alas, I have repeated this myself.  It is stuck in our collective "head."  Yet it IS true, we DO learn something new every day.

That something we learn does not have to be academic or scientific.  It could be something more mundane, something "ordinary."  For instance, today I learned that Karen Carpenter sang a song called "The Rainbow Connection."  Before today, I had never heard this song, even though I was a child of the '70's and had gone through school listening to the Carpenters.  And I listened the to the Carpenters for years after school. Yet somehow I missed this one.

Here is an excerpt from the song, with lyrics that seem to sum up Karen's life, and the search for something that she never seemed to find in this world, even though she made so many of us happy with her beautiful voice and her velvety renditions of this and other songs:

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

What's so amazing
That keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see
Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me

All of us under its spell, we know that it's probably magic

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

I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm supposed to be
Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

It almost seems like Karen herself could have written these lyrics, or at least that songwriter had Karen in mind.  In fact, neither of these were the case.

"The Rainbow Connection" was written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher for, of all things, "The Muppet Movie" in 1979.  "Kermit the Frog" provided the voice for the song.  So this was a song written for children, but it is so deep, if you consider the lyrics for very long.  And if you love Karen Carpenter, you may have realized that she was searching for something she never found.  Along with that, she was looking for control, and apparently only felt that the only thing she could control was her body weight, so control it she did.

In the latter part of Karen's musical career, she sang songs of longing, and there was a definite quality of longing in her voice.  Karen longed for her mother's love, and finally just for her mother's approval.  Karen (and others) believed that Mrs. Carpenter doled her love on Richard, leaving Karen in the background and feeling unloved.  Richard loved Karen, but controlled her musical career while she was one half of The Carpenters.  Karen's failed attempt at a solo career seemed to emphasize Richard's control over that aspect of her life.

One big thing that Karen longed for was a family.  She married a man who seemed to be of about the same wealth as she, and who seemed loving to her.  Above all, this man (Thomas Burris) promised to Karen the chance to have a family.  Just before the wedding, however, Burris confessed to Karen that he had undergone a vasectomy some years earlier.  Karen was shattered and betrayed.  She went to her mother and told her that she wanted to cancel the wedding.  Agnes Carpenter, a very "proper" woman (and very controlling of her family, as well) told Karen that the wedding WOULD HAPPEN.  Invitations were sent, gifts had been purchased, and the Press would be there.  Mrs. Carpenter told Karen she WOULD MARRY and that was that.  Karen was married to Burris in 1980.

Karen Carpenter sang of love, sang of happiness, of the grand possibilities awaiting newlyweds, but she herself never found that love; neither from her mother or from her husband.  Meanwhile, Karen was losing her battle with anorexia nervosa, and bulimia.  In fact, her husband, on the day he walked out of the marriage in 1982, called Karen a "bag of bones" and told Richard, "I'm leaving.  YOU can have her!"  Divorce proceedings began shortly afterwards.

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

Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

So today I heard this song for the first time.  I learned something new, something not academic or scientific.  I heard this old song for the first time, and to me it was a new song.  I still to this day cannot get over how beautiful was Karen's voice, even at a time when she was critically ill and was probably beyond the point of no return.  The song was released in 2001 but I missed it somewhere along the way, listening to mostly country and old rock music at that time.  But today, in 2016, I am so happy that I "discovered" this song.  I have added it to my favorites in Pandora.

I still listen to the Carpenters, but even more so to Karen singing her blues-y songs released during her "failed" solo career.  I am not sure who labelled her solo time as "failure" because her music was so beautiful and so haunting.  I know, the money did not roll in as expected, but I do not believe that was Karen's motivation anyway.  I think she was voicing her desire for that "something" that she just was not able to find in this life.  But I also believe she knew she was giving a gift to millions of people, and I hope she found some pleasure in knowing the magnitude of that gift.

So today I was glad to "learn something new" even though it was something "old."  I received a beautiful song from a beautiful, yet troubled lady...a beautiful and haunting gift.  I hope you will listen to it as well.  Even better, I hope you already know and love this song. 

Thank you, Karen.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTb9-eDmvKQ