'Rain' Songs- part three

By Robert Benson

Let’s continue with part three of our four part series about ‘rain’ songs:

“Here Comes The Rain Again” was a Top Ten Billboard hit (#4 in 1984) for the British pop duo Eurythmics. The song hit #8 in the UK and became their fifth consecutive Top Ten single in that country.

In The Dave Stewart Songbook , Dave Stewart has revealed that the lyrics for the song came after an argument between himself and Lewis; the basic melody had already been established:

“Annie was sitting in my room, and I was playing some little riff on the keyboard sitting on the window ledge, and I was playing these little melancholy A minor-ish chords with the B note in it. I kept on playing this riff, and Annie was looking out the window at the slate grey sky above the New York skyline and just sang spontaneously, 'Here Comes The Rain Again.' And that was all we needed.”

The song was adeptly recorded in an old church that was converted into a studio - except that the studio wasn't finished yet, however, they brought in the orchestra anyway. About 30 string players had to improvise by playing in corridors and even the toilet. The song was mixed blending the orchestra on top of electronic sounds created by a sequencer and drum machine.

The actual running time for the single depended on which release that you were playing, it is about five minutes long but was edited for the LP “Touch,” (it was cut down to four and one half minutes). The song was edited again for its single and video release, but many US radio stations decided to play the full-length version. The five minute version did not appear on any Eurythmics LP until the US edition of “Greatest Hits” in 1991.

A classic AM radio staple in the early 1970s, Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains In Sothern California,” peaked at #5 on the Billboard charts in 1972. The song was written by Hammond and lyricist Mike Hazelwood, as he explains:

"It never rains... was written in London, before we (Albert and Michael) came to Los Angeles, and we knew we were coming, and I've been telling Mike the story of me in Spain when I started and how I was asking for money outside of the train stations because I had no money to eat and I didn't want to tell my parents. My cousin was on honeymoon then, and he came out of the train station and saw me, and I didn't even know it was him... I just asked him for some money, too. And he said "you should be ashamed, I'm gonna tell your father," and I said "please, don't tell him, he'll go crazy and and stop me doing this!" And then he took me back into the hotel, I had a bath, he gave me some clean clothes and some money. I moved on, but he did tell my father, you know. All these things like "will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it" and all that stuff came from that era of my life when I was struggling, trying to make it, trying to get from Morocco to Spain, from Spain to England, from England to America... That struggle you go through, that's It Never Rains In Southern California, the story of my life."

Although Hammond was never able to duplicate the magic of this song as a solo artist (he did chart one other Top Forty hit for himself, 1974’s “I’m A Train) he was able to become quite an accomplished songwriter, writing nine Top Ten pop hits. Among his hits were: “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (#1 in 1974 performed by Starship), “The Air That I Breathe” (#6 in 1974 performed by the Hollies) and “To All The Girls I Loved Before,” written with Hal David and a #5 hit in 1984 for Julio Iglesais and Willie Nelson. Hammond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008.

“I Wish It Would Rain” was a 1967 hit single recorded by the legendary Motown group the Temptations. In a very sad tale of irony, the lyrics were written by Motown staff writer Roger Penzabene, who had just learned that his wife was cheating on him and in his sorrow and pain, penned the lyrics; wishing it would rain - to hide the tears falling down his face because "a man ain't supposed to cry." His tortured feelings were brought to life by David Ruffin and the accompanying mourning vocals of his bandmates Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, and Otis Williams.

Penzabene also wrote the follow-up hit “I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)” (#13 in May of 1968), expressing his pain that he felt in the lyrics of both songs. Sadly, the distraught songwriter committed suicide on New Year’s Eve in 1967; just a week after the song was released.

We had looked at Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘rain’ song ”Have You Ever Seen The Rain” in part one, but now let’s explore another CCR ‘rain’ song called “Who’ll Stop The Rain” (from 1970 album Cosmo's Factory).

The cut is actually the B-side to the single "Travelin' Band," which was of the many CCR singles to stall at #2 on the Billboard charts. (Surprisingly, Creedence Clearwater Revival never had a #1 hit in the US.). Additionally, the line, "I went down Virginia, seekin' shelter from the storm" gave Bob Dylan the idea for the title of his 1975 song "Shelter From The Storm." The song was also used in the 1978 motion picture of the same name starring Nick Nolte as a Vietnam veteran. However, the movie was going to be called “Dog Soldiers,” but when the producers got the rights to use this song, they changed the title to “Who'll Stop The Rain.”

In 2007 during a concert, Fogerty said the following about the song:

“ Well this next song has a bit of a fable surrounding it. A lot of folks seem to think I sang this song at Woodstock way back when. No. I was at Woodstock 1969… I think. It was a nice event. I’m a California kid. I went up there and saw a whole bunch of really nice young people. Hairy. Colorful. It started to rain, and got really muddy, and then (yelling) half a million people took their clothes off!!! (Normal voice again) Boomer generation making its presence known I guess. Anyway then I went home and wrote this song.”

Here are the words to the second verse:

Heard the singers playin', How we cheered for more.
The crowd had rushed together, Tryin' to keep warm.
Still the rain kept pourin', Fallin' on my ears.
And I wonder, Still I wonder Who'll stop the rain.

In part four of our series, we will wrap up our series about ‘rain’ songs.