Cock-Eyed Optimist

Cock-Eyed Optimist, Mitzi Gaynor, South Pacific Soundtrack

When the sky is a bright canary yellow
I forget every cloud I've ever seen
So they call me a cock-eyed 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 cock-eyed 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 every 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 jello
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

I was a pessimist for many years, the worst kind. I denied I was pessimistic and said I was being realistic. Expecting the worst so if it happened I wasn't disappointed, and if it didn't, it was a nice surprise. But "realism" tends to produce some self-fulfilling prophecies, if you ask me.

So now I prefer to be a "Cock-Eyed Optimist," just like Nellie Forbush in "South Pacific." I like to think that as Jesus has been binding up my broken heart, He left out the pessimistic piece and slipped in an optimistic one.

I'll never go back.