Rodgers: A Cock-Eyed Optimist (From "South Pacific")

When the skies are brighter canary yellow

I forget ev'ry cloud I've ever seen,

So they called me a cockeyed optimist

Immature and incurably green.

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow

That we're done and we might as well be dead,

But I'm only a cockeyed optimist

And I can't get it into my head.

I hear the human race

Is fallin' on its face

And hasn't very far to go,

But ev'ry whippoorwill

Is sellin' me a bill,

And tellin' me it just ain't so.

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello

And appear more intelligent and smart,

But I'm stuck like a dope

With a thing called hope,

And I can't get it out of my heart!

Not this heart.