This Fine Day

I had never heard the songbook of Finian's Rainbow until our high school performed it. We had wonderful singers and talented comedic actors in the class ahead of us, and playing in the concert orchestra I was lucky to have a front row seat.

The tunes have stayed with me---much more than other Sixties musicals that garnered more awards---but, now that I am closer in age to the old Irish father than his daughter, the lyrics take on poignancy.

How are things in Glocca Morra?
Is that little brook still leaping there?
Does it still run down to Donny cove
Through Killybegs, Kilkerry and Kildare?

How are things in Glocca Morra?
Is that willow tree still weeping there?
Does that laddie with the twinkling eye
Come whistling by? And does he walk away
Sad and dreamy there, not to see me there?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, especially to everyone who is far from home.

[Note: the 1968 film with Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, directed by Francis Ford Coppola(!), is on Amazon Streaming Video and is free to Amazon Prime customers.]