Telltale - Songs From The Thames Television Children's Programme Rainbow

 This has to be one of my slower rips, as this one has languished on my hard drive since 2009! In the meantime I lost the record and found it again recently, so now I can take a decent picture of the front and back covers for your perusal.

 

This record is nearly 50 years old believe it or not, and comes from a time when rainbows were merely white light which has been refracted, rather than symbols of subversive social movements. Indeed, this Rainbow would never have considered dressing in drag in order to entertain children, although one costume in particular is very suspect here.

This release is from before my Rainbow viewership began and some of the puppets appear to be a bit strange; I'm not sure what those hand puppets are or what might have happened to them. Perhaps Zippy ate them in the green room, or Bungle sat on them.

Whilst looking around at Rainbow-related matters, I was appalled to find that Geoffrey Hayes had died back in 2018, so rest in peace Geoffrey - I hate to think of the state of the place now that you've gone.

Despite the cover there are no appearances by George, Zippy et al. but the record is filled out by the show's resident workshy layabouts of that time - Telltale. They are responsible for the show's famous theme tune which is first up, but don't stop there as some of the tracks have some decent hooks and they're pretty competently put together.

There's 'Autumn's really here' which characterises that season by the proclivity of some birds to congregate on telephone wires. What about the groovy 'Bookworm Song' which lays down some fine nursery rhymes and there's 'Everything in the Garden Smells Sweet' which on occasion sounds suspiciously like 'Everything in the Garden Smells of Weed'. Bloody hippies.

Telltale - Songs From The Thames Television Children's Programme Rainbow 260kbps VBR