how're things in Glocca Morra?

I hear a bird, a Londonderry bird
It may well be he's bringing me a cheering word.
I feel a breeze, a river Shannon breeze.
It may well be it's followed me across the seas.
Then tell me please:

How are things in Glocca Morra?
Is that little brook still leaping there?
Does it still run down to Donny cove?...

----------------------------

When reading about President Kennedy (I can't refer to him as "Jack," the way the biographers do...) learning of his sister's death in a plane accident, while listening to a record, the phrase -- or, song title -- "How Are Things in Glocca Morra" sounded familiar, in a long-ago memory-preserved-untouched sort of style....I heard my dad say that, once..."How are Things in Glocca Morra?"

A tune doesn't come from Ancient-Memory section of my mind, just the phrase. ...

Did all the people who fought in WW II walk around saying or singing that phrase, or listening to the record?  Finian's Rainbow must have been a popular show.  And when people got home from the war, they wanted to have fun, I'll bet, and go to shows.  And buy the record.  And play it.

---------------------------
When you read about President Kennedy's sister Kathleen, it sounds like she was kind of "on a roll" of marrying English aristocrats.  Think that was a tradition sort of borrowed from the 19th century:  the fortune comes from America, the title from Europe:  the two people marry, and then they have money and titles -- though it does sound like her first husband and her next boyfriend, had their own money, as well....

Running around, taking the world by storm, sort of.  That's how people feel, when they're in their 20s.

-------------------------
[Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia] -- Finian's Rainbow is a musical....The 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances, while a film version was released in 1968 and several revivals have followed.

Finian moves to the southern United States (the fictional state of Missitucky...) from Ireland with his daughter Sharon, to bury a stolen pot of gold near Fort Knox, in the mistaken belief that it will grow.  A leprechaun follows them, desperate to recover his treasure before the loss of it turns him permanently human.  Complications arise when a bigoted and corrupt U.S. Senator gets involved, and when wishes are made inadvertently over the hidden crock.  The Irish-tinged score also includes gospel and R & B influences. ...

A combination of whimsy, romance, and political satire.... --------------- [end Free Encyclopedia excerpt]

The theme described there reminds me of "Born Yesterday" -- film made in 1950, based on a play...same time frame as Finian's Rainbow -- "romance-and-political-satire"...the villain-of-sorts in "Yesterday" is a "corrupt tycoon" who goes to Washington to try & buy a Congressman ("half-off if you buy a carton of bananas"...)

We can sense a pattern, here -- a "corrupt U.S. Senator"... "a corrupt tycoon"... After the War, nice people in America were opposed to corruption, and wanted to see it cleaned up.  At the end of Born Yesterday, the William Holden character tells it to Broderick Crawford -- "we're not going to put up with this anymore!"...something....

You could feel idealistic and strong, at the same time, because we had just won the War.

-30-