Waiting on a Sunny Day: 5 Songs About Rain

This week's songs are from Randy Newman, Songs: Ohia, The Temptations, Michael Hurley & Betsy Nichols, and Gil Scott-Heron

It’s been a pretty wet April here, and so I’ve been thinking about rainy days a lot. So I’m keeping the Spring theme going with one final entry for April.

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RIP Dave Mason - Traffic - “Feelin’ Alright”

I first (and mostly) heard of Dave Mason because whenever my mom was talking about Dave Matthews Band she always called them “Dave Mason Band” on accident. But Mason was a sometimes-member of Traffic, Delaney and Bonnie, and was a session player on some pretty great material (Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower,” “Crosstown Traffic, “Street Fighting Man,” and George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness”). Mason wrote and sang lead on “Feelin’ Alright?” which Joe Cocker turned into a hit by removing the question mark in the title. Mason wrote the song in between stints in Traffic, trying to think of “the simplest thing I could—two chords. That’s it.”

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A long while back I was at a family gathering. That night I was going to see Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at Wrigley Field, and the forecast was not looking good. My uncle quipped, “He’s gotta have a song about rain, right?” On the car ride back into the city, Springsteen’s “Mary’s Place” came on shuffle and lo and behold there it was: a big build up with a “Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain….” refrain. Springsteen actually has a couple of songs that fit a rainy day, including “Waiting on a Sunny Day” from The Rising and the recently released “Rain in the River” from Tracks II: Perfect World.

Plenty of other artists have songs about rainy days, so here are 5 songs about rainy days.

“I remember looking out the window. It was a sunny day and I started playing something, and the song suddenly went in a different direction. It did what many of my songs don’t don—it was a direct feeling. The guy’s down…It’s a song about empathy; it’s a song about the fact that we all have pain, we all have sorrow.” - Randy Newman

Randy Newman - “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today”

From Randy Newman’s self-titled debut, “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today” is an absolute stunner of a song. It’s thematically, musically, and morally complex. It’s got an episodic structure, with a middle passage that speeds up the pace, if only briefly. It weighs the cognitive dissonance necessary to make sense of the modern world. Inequality, the idle rich, loneliness, bad luck, and worse weather. And yet, he’s still able to see the kindness and goodness in the world, even if it’s the source of the rain.

Bright before me, the signs implore me
To help the needy and show them the way
Human kindness, it's overflowing
And I think it's going to rain today

A whole mixed up world of confounding emotions—anger, frustration, but ultimately hope, and generosity of spirit—all in just over three minutes. Early in his career, Newman felt the song was too maudlin and suggested it was a spoof of mid-60s folk acts like Simon & Garfunkel. Judy Collins, Nina Simone, and Peter Gabriel would record their own versions, but Newman’s original is special.

Songs: Ohia - “Didn’t It Rain”

Whether recording as himself, Magnolia Electric Company, or Songs: Ohia, Jason Molina’s music has an apocalyptic intensity and starkness to it. It’s like reading Cormac McCarthy while listening to Zuma or Tonight’s The Night. As galvanizing as that intensity is, it’s equally as fragile. Particularly Molina’s voice. “Didn’t It Rain” is a perfect example of all of this at once. Like Newman’s “I Think It’s Going to Rain,” the singer is mindful of others, looking out for them as best as they can. But for him it’s not enough—the world is cruel and dangerous.

I’ve seen a good man and a bad man down the same path
I’ve seen the light of truth keeping out of it and told them to watch their own backs
If I see you struggle and givin’ all that you got
I see you work all night burning your light to the last of its dim watts
I’m gonna help you how I can, if you see me struggle all night
and give me a hand cause I’m in need I’ll call you friend indeed
but I’m going to watch my own back

The Temptations - “I Wish It Would Rain”

Not a typical sentiment you expect from a song, but once the subject of a song like “My Girl” move on to a new guy, I can see wanting to take the song back. Four years after “My Girl,” the Temptations appear to be doing just that. They reuse some of the imagery from the iconic hit, and the strings dip into a similar melody as the bridge in “My Girl.” But singer David Ruffin isn’t feeling the “sunshine on a cloudy day,” with a tremendous delivery of bitter heartbreak. “I Wish It Would Rain” was co-written by Barrett Strong (“Money [That’s What I Want]”) and includes the legendary James Jamerson on bass. The song was also recorded by Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and the Faces, among others. This one’s got some magic the others don’t.

“I like to listen to people who are playing themselves, not somebody else or who they think they should be. I like a raw truth. I like to celebrate the hilarity of life. The whole deal. The boogie-woogie, the bebop, and the blues” - Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley & Betsy Nichols - “River in the Rain”

There’s a melancholy sweetness to this song, somewhere in between the minor chords and the soft harmonies, that can bring me to the edge of joyful tears. The tenderness of Hurley and Nichols’ vocals feels like you’re listening to an old couple singing just for each other on a porch late into the evening. It’s in stark contrast to the original—a Roger Miller song written for Big River, a Broadway musical adaptation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—which is a glossy country ballad. Miller’s version sounds like its trying to conjure up a memory, where Hurley and Nichols are quietly watching rain patter on the river and giving it a soundtrack of reciprocal peaceful beauty.

“Music has the power to make me feel good like nothing else does. It gives me some peace for a while. Takes me back to who I really am.” - Gil Scott-Heron

Gil Scott-Heron - “I Think I’ll Call It Morning”

Best known for “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” I’d filed away Gil Scott-Heron as a spoken word artist from a single track. It was only recently that I spent time with the rest of Pieces of a Man and found out how wrong I was. It’s got a low-key groove to it that works on a sunny or rainy day. With the early 70s social conscience on full display, you could call it a period piece if the social problems he was singing about weren’t still ongoing problems. On “I Think I’ll Call It Morning,” Heron finds himself in a similar place as Newman and Molina, acknowledging “this world’s madness.” But he takes it upon himself to reject that, and be the master of his own destiny.

I'm gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
And paint it all over my sky
Be no rain

Whatever the weather, if you can’t create your own sunshine, give Gil Scott-Heron a chance to do it for you.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.