YouTube pouring song about rain

Did you enjoy the rain last week?

I got over an inch at my house and, with more in the forecast for the day this column comes out, I had a little time to reflect on rain, gaze into a puddle and see my own reflection, do a rain dance, and check out YouTube for songs about rain. There are a lot of them.

The first rain song we all learned as tykes was a little counter-intuitive to how we mostly felt after we got grown in this part of the country. Yeah, you don’t catch me singing “Rain, Rain, Go Away” much anymore.

A song that always brings back memories of music class, umbrellas, old bicycles and a concert at Greyhound Arena is “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” It was the theme to the 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” I knew all the words because our music teacher, Mrs. Brassell, made us learn the song even before it became a number one hit by B.J. Thomas, who sang the song several years later at ENMU.

Who doesn’t like to watch Gene Kelley in black and white dance and sing the classic tune “Singing in the Rain,” from the movie of the same name. The classic early-60s sound came in a one-hit wonder by the Cascades when they invited us to “Listen To the Rhythm of the Falling Rain.” It reached No. 1 on the charts in 1963.

Born in the 60s, the rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival was a bit schizophrenic about rain. First they wrote the song “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” then later, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” (‘coming down on a sunny day”). Many assumed they were both about the Vietnam War and they were anti-war anthems, but while “Stop the Rain” was just that, John Fogarty, who wrote both songs, said the second song was about the turmoil and state of the band.

“I Wish It Would Rain,” a 60s song by the Temptations, has to be one of the two saddest pop songs about rain. The voice in the song wishes for rain to hide the tears caused by a broken love.

The second sad song about rain also brings the tears into play with Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In the Rain.” “Love is like a dying ember — only memories remain,” croons Nelson. Now that’s a sad song.

Bob Dylan got into the rain business, but it didn’t always make sense. He penned “A Hard Rain’s Gonna’ Fall,” which was really deep, so deep I’m not even sure the Nobel Prize laureate himself can explain it exactly. Then he sang a song titled “Rainy Day Women” which really wasn’t about rain, with the refrain “Everybody must get stoned.”

In almost the same song title (pay attention here), Waylon Jennings had a big hit with “Rainy Day Woman.” The song was about a woman’s arms, where he never failed to find solace and comfort, a love for a rainy day.

In blues music, my favorite rain songs are “Rainy Night In Georgia” by Brooke Benton (I like the song but couldn’t tell you the songwriter until I Googled it) and “Floodin’ Down In Texas” by Stevie Ray Vaughan.

One of the hottest rain songs on country radio in the last decade was Luke Bryan’s “Rain Is a Good Thing,” which I personally got a little tired of. You know the one that talks about rain making corn and corn making whiskey and whiskey making his girl a little frisky. Rain is a good thing, but a good thing that song ain’t.

A couple of the saddest country/western songs about rain are both sad for different reasons.

Garth Brooks' “Thunder Rolls,” with its haunting storm all through the background of the recording, really sets the mood for a regretful return home for a man who has cheated on his wife. It kept me from cheating on my bride.

The other one I like is “July In Cheyenne,” by Aaron Watson, about the death of professional bull rider Lane Frost. Even though I didn’t follow his bright but too short career too closely myself, the refrain of “In the rain, in the mud, in July, in Cheyenne,” puts a big lump in my throat.

Finally, while researching this much-too-long column on the Internet I ran onto a song I wasn’t too familiar with entitled, “Songs About Rain,” by Gary Allan.

Darn, a songwriter already had this column idea.

“They go on and on and there’s no two the same, oh it would be easy to blame all these songs about rain.”

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]