Go ahead and sing it: It's not easy being green

By Dian Vujovich

Of all the things that Earth Day can stand for, green comes to mind for me.

Green, as we all know, can represent things like the color money ,the naivety of an individual or Earth Day. But nothing sums up all its many meanings better than the lyrics of “Bein’ Green” sung by none other than Sesame Street’s one and only, Kermit the Frog. The tune, BTW, was written in 1970 by Joe Raposo. That’s the year Earth Day was spawned.

If you’ve got kids or are a big one yourself, you know tune. If you’ve forgotten, hear it at http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/green.htm . Then go ahead and sing it. It will make you smile.

“It’s not that easy being green;

Having to spend each day the color of the leaves.
When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold…
or something much more colorful like that.

It’s not easy being green.
It seems you blend in with so many other ord’nary things.
And people tend to pass you over ’cause you’re
not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water
or stars in the sky.

But green’s the color of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain,
or tall like a tree.

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?
Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful!
And I think it’s what I want to be.”