When it opened off-Broadway in 1967 (and on Broadway in 1968), the musical Hair was groundbreaking with its hippie themes and on-stage nudity. The musical has also supplied us with several hit songs, including “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (a hit for the 5th Dimension), “Hair” (a hit for the Cowsills), “Easy to Be Hard” (a hit for Three Dog Night), and today’s classic song of the day, “Good Morning Starshine.”
In the musical, “Good Morning Starshine” is sung by the character Sheila, who was played by Jill O’Hara in the original off-Broadway production, Lynn Kellogg in the first Broadway cast, and Jennifer Warnes in the 1968 Los Angeles production. The singer known as Oliver (real name: William Oliver Swofford) recorded it for Jubilee Records, which released the single in May of 1969. The single was a smash hit, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, #4 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #3 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart.
“Good Morning Starshine,” written by James Rado, Gerome Ragni, and Galt MacDermot, is an optimistic song about greeting the day with joy. It includes more than its fair share of nonsense lyrics, including:
Gliddy glup gloopy
Nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba nabba le le lo lo
Tooby ooby walla nooby abba nabba
Early morning singing song
I have no idea what any of that means, but it’s easy to sing along to.
Oliver made a habit out of recording songs from films and Broadway plays. He followed the success of “Good Morning Starshine” with the song “Jean,” which was the theme from the movie The Prime of Miss Jean Brody. Hey, it worked for him.
And here’s today’s daily bonus track of the day. It’s Jill O’Hara, the original Sheila in the off-Broadway production of Hair, singing “Good Morning Starshine.” Groovy, baby.
