“I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” is one of a number of songs that became instant hits in shows no one remembers.

Oh, Look! ran for 68 performances between March 7 and May 4,  1918. It featured the very successful partnership of Harry Fox and the Dolly Sisters. Harry Carroll wrote the music,  Joseph McCarthy the lyrics, and James Montgomery the book. No description of whatever plot it had appears on the web.

The song, however, became an instant standard. Nearly all the most prominent singers of popular music have performed and recorded it. And if it hasn’t been part of the Broadway repertoire, it has been featured in at least three movies.

The creators of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”

Harry Carroll (1892-1962) began playing piano in movie theaters as a child. When he graduated from high school, he moved to New York. He worked both as a Tin Pan Alley arranger and as an entertainer/accompanist. He started writing songs in 1912. Oh, Look! was his first full-length musical.

Joseph McCarthy (1885-1943) started his career singing in cafes and went on to work for music publishers. He became a well-known and respected lyricist. In partnership with several important songwriters (especially Harry Tierney), he wrote lyrics for Ziegfeld’s Follies, Broadway musicals, and films. He also wrote the words for “You Made Me Love You.”

Harry Fox had a very successful vaudeville career and branched out into Broadway. In about 1910, he teamed up with the Millership Sisters in a comedy/dance routine. He provided the comedy and the sisters the dancing.

The act’s success led him to New York, where, instead of the Millership Sisters, he teamed up with identical twins, the Dolly Sisters. By 1913, they played at the Orpheum and were considered the best act in vaudeville. Also in 1913, Fox participated in Ziegfeld’s Follies and invented a new ballroom dance, the fox-trot. Fox and Jenny Dolly married in 1914.

Lyrics

At the end of the rainbow there’s happiness,
And to find it how often I’ve tried,
But my life is a race, just a wild goose chase,
And my dreams have all been denied.
Why have I always been a failure,
What can the reason be?
I wonder if the world’s to blame,
I wonder if it could be me?

[Chorus]
I’m always chasing rainbows
Watching clouds drifting by.
My schemes are just like all my dreams,
Ending in the sky,
Some fellows look and find the sunshine,
I always look and find the rain,
Some fellows make a winning sometime,
I never even make a gain,
Believe me,
I’m always chasing rainbows,
Waiting to find a little blue bird in vain.

The inspiration of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”

Carroll, McCarthy, and others were chatting at the Friars Club one night when someone remarked, “You songwriters are an unpredictable lot. You’re up in the clouds one day and lower than all hell the next.”

Carroll had a quick explanation: ‘You know why that is, don’t you? We’re always chasing rainbows, but we never catch up with them.” And someone remarked that a song with that title would be a sure hit. Before the night was finished, McCarthy and Carroll had written it.

Tin Pan Alley songwriters frequently borrowed classical tunes. Carroll arranged the chorus of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” from the middle section of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu op. 66 (1834). Since hardly anyone sings the verse, he’s more arranger than composer. It’s probably because of the song that it’s one of Chopin’s best-known tunes.

It’s ironic that at least one sheet music edition warns, “Any arrangement or adaptation of this composition without the consent of the owner is an infringement of copyright.”

The success of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”

The sheet music for “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” sold more than a million copies in 1918. It would have reached the top of the charts in January 1919 if the charts had yet existed. This according to Edward Foote Gardner, who retrospectively compiled charts for pre-Billboard music.

In 1939, “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” appeared in the movie Rose of Washington Square. Ziegfeld Girl (with Judy Garland, 1941), and The Dolly Sisters (1945) also used it.

Numerous singers and instrumentalists have performed and recorded the song over the years. Alice Cooper, at least, sang the verse.

Sources:
America’s Songs / Philip Furia and Michael Lasser (Routledge, 2006)
Harry Carroll and Joseph McCarthy “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” / American Musical Theatre Collection, Gilmore Music Library, Yale University