"A Cockeyed Optimist" is a song featured in the 1958 film South Pacific with music composed by Richard Rodgers and lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II. In the song, a nurse from Arkansas named Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor) admires the view of the sun over the ocean and muses knowingly about her naturally sunny perspective.
Lyrics[]
When the sky is a bright canary yellow
I forget ev'ry cloud I've ever seen—
So they call 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 falling on its face
And hasn't very far to go,
But ev'ry whip-poor-will
Is selling me a bill
And telling me it just ain't so!
I could say life is just a bowl of Jell-O
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!
Emile de Becque • Nellie Forbush • Joseph Cable • Luther Billis • Bloody Mary • Liat • George Brackett • William Harbison • Rob McCaffrey • Henry • Ngana • Jerome • Stewpot
