While I was mulling over what to choose as my theme for this week I happened to open the BBC Weather app (other apps are available) and it struck me that there was a common theme running through the forecasts for this week: just about every day was going to see some rain (all apart from today, ironically). I’ve chosen rainbows as a theme before, but not the wet stuff on its own, so this week I’m giving you a set of songs with rain in their title. As is often the case I could think of many more songs than I could fit in – at least another two posts’ worth – so if this goes well you may be hearing some more rain songs another week.

I’m starting this week with the first record ever to be played on BBC Radio 1 when the station began, at 7am on Saturday 30th September 1967, just two weeks after my 14th birthday – yes, I was listening on my little transistor radio! This was at #3 in that week’s chart – the #1, The Last Waltz by Engelbert Humperdinck, was more up Radio 2’s street, and the #2, Excerpt From A Teenage Opera, wasn’t cheery enough as a starter for a new station:

The Move were very successful here in the UK for a few years, before they disbanded and morphed into the Electric Light Orchestra and Roy Wood’s Wizzard. Flowers in the Rain was released in August 1967 and peaked at #2, their third single and their third big hit. There is an amusing tale about this song, which is told on their Wikipedia page: In a promotional stunt for the record — typical of the band’s manager Tony Secunda — a postcard was released with a cartoon of a naked then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary Marcia Williams (later Baroness Marcia Falkender). Wilson sued, and the High Court ordered that all royalties from the song be donated to a charity of Wilson’s choice. This legal arrangement remains in force to this day and is thought to have cost the group millions of pounds over the years. A footnote to that is that Prime Ministers’ resignation honours lists have long been used to reward cronies!

You may have heard of this next band before. I think I might have played an occasional song by them:

Rain was released in May 1966 as the B-side to the Beatles’ single Paperback Writer, which duly made #1 in both the UK and the US. Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the Revolver album, though neither was included on it: they acted as a taster for what was to come when the album arrived in August. This one was written by John Lennon, who said that it was a comment on how people moaned about the weather all the time: that’s a national sport here! Due to their custom of listing both sides of a single, the song also made #23 in the US in its own right.

I could have played either of a couple of songs by the next band, as rain appeared more than once in their titles. Then again, I could have played an original band version, but I’ve decided to go with this one instead. During the early lockdown days John Fogerty took to making videos of him playing some of his amazing back catalogue with his kids, Shane, Tyler and Kelsy. They were all fantastic, and this one just feels right – it was published exactly three years ago today, and as well as a quick plug for one of his other songs it starts with a wonderful story about Creedence Clearwater Revival’s appearance at Woodstock:

Who’ll Stop The Rain was a track on CCR’s fifth album, Cosmo’s Factory, released in July 1970, which made #1 in the UK, US (for nine weeks), Australia and Canada, amongst others. It is a fantastic album – go take a look at its track listing – and sold more than 4m copies in the US alone. This song had first appeared as the B-side to the single release of Travelin’ Band in January of that year – it peaked at #2 in the US and #8 in the UK. They have long been one of my favourite bands and this series of videos, later released as Fogerty’s Factory, were an utter joy. They came out on roughly a weekly basis, and made lockdown much more bearable.

I’m staying Stateside for another trip back to my teenage years. This is lovely:

The Lovin’ Spoonful released Rain on the Roof as single in October 1966, the month before the album it was on: Hums Of The Lovin’ Spoonful. The single reached #10 in the US, #12 in Canada and #52 in the UK, The album got to #14 in the US and #8 in Canada but didn’t make the UK charts. That surprises me a little, as the first single from the album – Summer In The City – was a US #1 and made #8 over here. Generally, though, I think we undervalued them – I loved the band and still do.

Another of my usual suspects for you next. I’ve been a huge fan of this guy ever since his first album, back in 1986, and this is great:

The Rain Came Down was a track on Steve Earle’s second album Exit 0, which came out in May 1987, peaking at #90 in the US, #36 in Canada, and #15 on the US Country Albums chart, though it didn’t make it in the UK. If you’ve seen these posts before you’ll know how much I like Steve’s music, and ever since his early days he has been making great records. He has a wide following, and I was lucky enough to see him in concert at the Royal Festival Hall in summer 2013, just before I retired. I was a bit late finding out about the show and had to make do with a seat that was halfway to Mars, but it was a fabulous evening, a real tick on that mythical bucket list.

I’m coming back this side of the pond for my next one, with a track from a Scottish band I’ve played just once before, and not this one. The video is a bit grainy, but it’s still a great song:

The Cosmic Rough Riders were around from about 1998, though their three albums date from 2000 to 2005. This was the opening track on their second album, Too Close To See Far, which came out in July 2003 and spent one whole week in the UK chart, at #83. Justify the Rain was released as a single, and peaked at #39. I loved their records, their jangly guitars and their tuneful harmonies – this is my kinda music!

Another band that I like but haven’t played as much as I might are The Pogues. This was an album track, but someone has kindly created a video for it:

Rain Street was a track on Hell’s Ditch, their fifth studio album, which was released in November 1990 and was the last to feature Shane MacGowan as a member. Shane wrote the song: he wrote or co-wrote nine of the album’s thirteen tracks, which was fairly normal for them. The album reached #12 in the UK and was one of their few to make a mark in the US chart, albeit only at #187. Like everything they did, it was a mixture of intelligent lyrics and jaunty tunes like this one. I should play them more often, and not just at Christmas!

As I said at the beginning, I have a list of other rain songs I could play you, and may well share another set. Just in case I don’t, I couldn’t leave this one out, could I:

Purple Rain is the title track of Prince’s sixth album, which was released in June 1984 to tie in with the movie of the same name, from which this video is taken. It is an incredibly good album, and is one to which I still return nearly forty years later: it bears the replays. It reached #1 in the US, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and, er, Zimbabwe, and got to #7 in the UK, though it improved on that in 2016, peaking at #4 after Prince’s death, which was seven years ago last Saturday. The movie isn’t the greatest the world has ever seen but is worth watching if you haven’t seen it before, even if only for the music. The song was the third single taken from the album, in September 1984, reaching #2 in the US and #6 in the UK. It is still, for me, a classic pop song, with one of the best guitar solos ever.

That’s it for my first set of rain songs. There may well be more posts of these, as I’ve had to leave out quite a few good ones. If you’d like to add to my list please feel free in the comments, but I only want songs with the actual word in the title, not derivatives like ‘rainy’ or ‘raining.’ That’s ruled out a few, hasn’t it! I’ll leave you to mull that over, and will return again in a few days, and will of course be back for Song Lyric Sunday. Enjoy your week 😊