Daddy’s on the Rainbow

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: September 27, 1955

I heard a little boy ask a little girl,
“Where’s your daddy, dear? I never see him here.”
And this is how she answered him,
“My daddy’s on the rainbow in the sky,
High above the world, rocking in a rainbow chair.
My daddy sends the stormy clouds away with his rainbow smile.
Can’t you see him ‘way up there?
Daddy-on-the-rainbow, can you see me here?
Can I climb the rainbow, can I, Daddy dear?
I’ve done all the things you told me to.
I’ve kept every vow.
Can I climb the rainbow now?”

Following World War II there were too many children without fathers and Bob was moved to write for them.

This is another demo Bob Nolan made on wax and paper on his home recording machine. Played a few times, it was virtually ruined. After Bob's death, his grandson transferred it to tape with indifferent success.

“I remember years ago, soon after Bob died, that my mom went down to see P-Nuts and brought back a box of old 78s. These records were one-time studio recordings of songs that he wrote and never were recorded [commercially]. But we went out and got a 78 record player, needles, (which were hard to find), and hooked it up to a cassette recorder and recorded all the records. As you can imagine the quality was very poor. A little curl of wax built up before the needle so the sound was virtually destroyed.”
(Calin Coburn, July 2, 2000)

We do not have any sheet music for this song.