"I Can Sing a Rainbow," also known simply as "Sing a Rainbow," is a popular song written by

Arthur Hamilton Arthur Hamilton Stern (born October 22, 1926),Stern, Arthur “Art”
''Mar-Ken ...

. It was featured in the 1955 film '' Pete Kelly's Blues,'' where it was sung by

Peggy Lee Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalis ...

Background

The song has been used to teach children names of colours. Despite the name of the song, two of the seven colours mentioned ("red and yellow and green,pink and purple and orange and blue") –

pink Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, ...

and

purple Purple is any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue. In the RGB color model used in computer and television screens, purples are produced by mixing red and blue light. In the RYB color model historically used by painters, pu ...

– are not actually a colour of the

rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

(i.e. they are not

spectral color A spectral color is a color that is evoked by ''monochromatic light'', i.e. either a single wavelength of light in the visible spectrum, or by a relatively narrow band of wavelengths (e.g. lasers). Every wavelength of visible light is percei ...

s; pink is a variation of shade, and purple is the human brain's interpretation of mixed red/blue ee_line_of_purples.html" ;"title="line_of_purples.html" ;"title="ee line of purples">ee line of purples">line_of_purples.html" ;"title="ee line of purples">ee line of purples. They are also not presented in order of the visible light spectrum.

Versions

*Andy Williams released a version on his 1964 album, ''The Wonderful World of Andy Williams.'' *David and Marianne Dalmour used the song as first track of their LP ''Introducing David and Marianne Dalmour.'' *The British

pop singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Cilla Black Priscilla Maria Veronica White (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), better known as Cilla Black, was an English singer, actress and television presenter. Championed by her friends the Beatles, Black began her career as a singer in 1963. Her ...

recorded the song for her 1966 studio album, '' Cilla Sings a Rainbow;'' the album title and cover sleeve were both inspired by the song. Black's second album was a commercial success, charting at number 4 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

. Due to popular demand, Black regularly performed the song in her live concert tours of the 1960s and 1970s. *Irish singer Jackie Lee recorded a version for her 1968 album ''White Horses'', produced by

Derek Lawrence Derek John Lawrence (16 November 1941 – 13 May 2020) was an English record producer, famous for his work for Joe Meek's Outlaws, Deep Purple, Flash, Machiavel and Wishbone Ash. Lawrence came in contact with Meek circa at the end of 1963, ...

for

Philips Records Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. It was founded as Philips Phonographische Industrie in 1950. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in A ...

. *In 1969, recording by

the Dells The Dells were an American R&B vocal group. Formed in high school in 1953 by founding members Marvin Junior, Verne Allison, Johnny Funches, Chuck Barksdale, and Michael and Lucius McGill, under the name the El-Rays. They released their first r ...

of the song in a medley with " Love is Blue" reached number 22 in the US pop

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabul ...

, number 5 on the R&B charts, number 9 in Canada top singles chart (''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'') number 18 in Ireland, and number 16 in the UK charts, in 1969. *In 2004

Delta Goodrem Delta Lea Goodrem AM (born November 9, 1984) is an Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Goodrem signed to Sony Music at the age of 15. Her debut album, '' Innocent Eyes'' (2003), topped the ARIA Albums Chart for 29 non-consecutive week ...

sang the song in a TV advertisement for

Tourism Australia Tourism Australia is the Australian Government agency responsible for promoting Australian locations as business and leisure travel destinations. The agency is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and employs 187 staff (inclu ...

that aired in many countries. *This song was also used as the theme song for the Philadelphia-based children's television program ''

Captain Noah and His Magical Ark ''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'' was a television program for children and was generally broadcast around the Philadelphia area. The series aired from 1967 to 1994. It was filmed and produced at the WPVI-TV, Channel 6 (then called WFIL when ...

'', with Williams' version as the opening theme and sung at the close of each episode by host W. Carter Merbreier as the show's titular character. *Children's presenter

Justin Fletcher Justin Fletcher (born 15 June 1970) is an English actor, comedian, singer and television presenter on the BBC pre-school television channel CBeebies. Speaking and performing in various, often self-created, roles, he specialises in slapstick c ...

sang the song on the 2008 album, ''Justin Fletcher Sings Something Special'', based on the TV show of the same name. It was previously featured in the ''Something Special'' episode, Colours.

References

1955 songs 1969 singles Andy Williams songs Songs written for films Songs written by Arthur Hamilton 1950s ballads {{1950s-song-stub