Rainbow Stew Lyrics

Lyric discussion by tbradshaw 

Cover art for Rainbow Stew lyrics by Merle Haggard

This is a utopian paean, a dream of what can be as compared to what is, or at least what the author believes it to be. First he paints an ugly picture of the current state of the world from his perspective, the he adds is dream of what it could be. The only thing that's not clear to me is whether his dreams are tongue-in-cheek. Bubble Up, you may remember, was the economy version of 7-Up, in the days before Coca-Cola produced Sprite. Rainbow Stew appears to be a utopian vision of food products that meet the general needs of the population. So if it's tongue-in-cheek, he's painting a picture of a socialist society--good, but not great.

My Interpretation

@tbradshaw It was totally tongue-in-cheek! He is ridiculing the idealistic hippies!