A Story for Your Sunday

When I was a kid, we weren't allowed to watch TV before church on Sundays. Instead, my mom would turn on KSL Radio's "Sounds of the Sabbath" in order to help up prepare to go to church in the right spirit. Now, most of the time, this was a pleasant tradition. Once in a while, however, one little song would completely derail the morning's peaceful mood. I think all you Utah Mormons know which song I'm talking about: it was the dreaded "I'll Build You a Rainbow."

What was wrong with Mormons in the '70's, anyway? It seems that everyone was creating these horrible movies, thinly veiled as gospel principles, but that were actually attempts to see who could make everyone cry the hardest. You've got "Cypher in the Snow", "Norah's Gift", and the granddaddy of them all, "I'll Build You a Rainbow". This particular song was written by a seminary teacher and put to a slide show to teach students about eternal families. Cruel, cruel, cruel.

So, anyway, we'd be sitting there on a pleasant Sunday morning, minding our own business, and "I'll Build You a Rainbow" would come on the radio. We'd all stop what we were doing to look at Mom, waiting for the waterworks to begin. Sure enough, she'd start to cry. Every time. Then my dad would walk by, laughing, and pat her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Momma," he'd say. "You're not going to die." And then all of us kids would chime in and laugh and point. "Mom's crying again! You're not going to die, Mom!" we'd say. But then as I got older, I began to realize, Holy crap - this song IS depressing! And soon I couldn't laugh and point anymore, because I was crying right along with my mom. We'd sit there and cry through the whole song, me desperately hiding my face lest my brothers catch me sniffling and start laughing and pointing at me, too. Finally, I started just turning off the radio whenever the song came on to save us all the misery.

Years later, and I don't remember the circumstance, but something terribly sappy must have been going on, because I began singing "I'll Build You a Rainbow ..." and found out that Chris, not being a Utah Mormon, had never even heard that darn, corny song. I was astounded. I tried to explain it to him, but, much like pregnancy, you just have to experience it for yourself before you can truly comprehend how horrible it really is. So, I began a quest to track down "I'll Build You a Rainbow" to show to my husband. And years later (OK - I wasn't looking that hard), I finally found it. So, for all of you who haven't partaken of the misery (and for all you masochists out there): grab a hanky. Without further ado, I give you the hilariously depressing "I'll Build You a Rainbow." (Click here to view.)