Cock-Eyed Optimist

South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. The plot is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific and combines elements of several of those stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, send a strong progressive message on racism. The plot centers on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II, who falls in love with a middle-aged expatriate French plantation owner but struggles to accept his m… more »

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When the sky is bright canary yellow
I forget every 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 every whip-poor-will
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

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Written by: Oscar Hammerstein Ii, Richard Rodgers

Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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"Cock-Eyed Optimist Lyrics." Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 May 2024. <https://www.lyrics.com/lyric-lf/7178641/Nellie+Forbush/Cock-Eyed+Optimist>.

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