Sometimes all you need is an anthropomorphic piece of green felt, a banjo, and a dream.

And an objective third party.

Let’s begin with Paul Williams. You may not recognize his name (or you may have forgotten it), but Williams wrote huge hits for a number of artists in the 1970s, including “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days And Mondays” by The Carpenters, “An Old Fashioned Love Song” by Three Dog Night, and the #1 “Evergreen” by Barbra Streisand. Not to mention songs recorded by The Monkees, Gladys Knight, Kris Kristofferson, and, more recently, Daft Punk.

If you were a TV and movie junkie in the 70s and 80 you would definitely know Williams from his many acting roles (and voiceover work in the 90s), and he also gained fame as a popular and frequent guest on talk shows, variety shows, and games shows since he possessed both great talent and a quick sense of humor. One of these appearances occurred in 1976, when he guest-starred on an episode of The Muppet Show during its first season.

Williams immediately hit it off with Muppet-meister Jim Henson, and when Henson needed songs for his 1977 TV special, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, he turned to Williams to provide them. And so it came to pass, two years later, when Henson received the green light for a full-length movie featuring the Muppets, only one name came to mind for the soundtrack.

Henson set the opening scene for Williams: Kermit the Frog, sitting on a lily pad, playing the banjo. Simple enough. Williams invited his current writing partner, Kenny Ascher, to come over to his house and get to work.

The pair immediately pictured a sun-dappled pond, the light streaming through the trees and reflecting off the water, and knew they wanted to start the song with rainbows. The first verse came quickly, as did most of the chorus, but they couldn’t think of a title. So instead they sang nonsense syllables as a placeholder: “Someday we’ll find it…duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh…the lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

The hours passed and they continued to get nowhere. Exactly what will we find someday?

Finally, Williams’ wife, who had been listening to them working as she made dinner and set the table, asked why they kept singing duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh over and over. Williams’ tried to explain the problem, telling her they were attempting to link the rainbow in the first line to the lines of the chorus but couldn’t figure out how to get there. They needed to find some kind of rainbow connection to tie everything together.

“So you’re looking for a rainbow connection?” she asked.

“A rainbow connection?” asked Williams.

“Yes, that’s what you just said,” she answered.

Sometimes somebody else has to make the connection for you.

Released as a single in the summer of 1979, “Rainbow Connection” arced its way up to #25 on the US Hot 100 and received an Oscar nomination the following year. Dozens of artists have covered the song over the decades, but it all started with a frog, and a banjo, and a little help from Paul Williams’ wife.

So join the lovers, the dreamers….. and Kermit the Frog.