"Oh The Weather Outside Is Weather..."

Well September has washed over us. We had a typically transient shimmer of summer for the first week or so but no, perfectly half way through the month, the rains have deigned to rejoin us (at least here in Surrey)
Personally, I'm a priveleged member of the "We're-British-And-We're-Never-Happy-With-The-Weather-But-At-Least-We're-Used-To-The-Rain-So-Let's-Get-Back-To-It" society.

I kid. To a degree. I much prefer rain, the quietly thrilling intimidated feeling one can only get in a thunderstorm, and the instant living snap of a lightning bolt to claustrophobic and cloying walls of heat and indiscriminate blitz of sunshine that summer sometimes involves.

Anyway, all of this weather we've been having, coupled with me having a lot of time and Spotify, got me to thinking about great song to listen to in the rain. The below list is some songs I've thought of that are either about rain, mention rain or just sound a tad rainy. Enjoy. Or mope, however they make you feel.

1. Singin' In The Rain - Gene Kelly
This was always gonna be number one. Let's face it.

2. Rainy Days and Mondays- The Carpenters
This song is an indispensable essential for rainy mopers.

3. A Little Fall of Rain- Les Miserables
The rippling keys and gently plucked guitar throughout this unappreciated highlight from Les Miserables, along with the stunning chords, just sound like rain. Gentle, soft, full, resonant. Perfect.

4. Purple Rain- Prince & The Revolution
Now this song is intense. This song is the sound of the image we've all had of someone belting their heart out to their lost lover in the rain. Melodramatic, scintillating and unbelievably 80s, it's light a strike of lightning when Prince just howls that "Honey I know, I know!"

5. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head- B.J Thomas
Although this song is by an American and in a cowboy movie, I personally think it just sounds like a very British outlook on rain! (And yes I am aware than rain is a metaphor in this song and nearly every other sodding song on this list)

6. Nice Weather For Ducks- Lemon Jelly
A relatively obscure song from a British downtempo and electronica duo (although it was on Radio 1's Live Lounge album) it's just awesome and sounds exactly like ducks in rain.

7. Both Sides Now- Joni Mitchell
OK, so this song isn't about rain... and doesn't really mention it... but it mentions clouds... and you need clouds for rain... and it's just the perfect song to sit and listen to in the rain and stare reflectively out of the window, pondering the relevance of pathetic fallacy!

8. Over The Rainbow- Judy Garland
Hell yes.

9. Kentucky Rain- Elvis Presley
An Elvis song that not too many are familiar with, I still can't decide whether this song is really musically awesome or just pure cheese. Ah well. It's a tune about rain!

10. November Rain- Guns N' Roses
Say what you will about Guns N' Roses (ok, Axl Rose is possibly THE biggest twat to walk the face of the earth) THIS.... this RIGHT here... is a rock epic. It's massive, and shows really what sets Guns N' Roses apart form other cockrock and hair metal bands, the fact that there is a genuine human heart and soul beating and bleeding beneath the intense soloing and riffing some of the time.

11. When The Rain Comes- Third Day
One of those songs that really is just "a nice little song" but I find it truly listenable and just a tad touching. A very truthful chorus.

12. Fool in The Rain- Led Zeppelin
A lost gem in the never ending Zep catalogue, it's built around a funky as hell piano riff and tells an great story and, like nearly all Zep songs, is a bit of a tune!

13. Laughter in The Rain- Neil Sedaka
Sedaka's lyrical and soaring tenor croon is what makes this baby, which sounds like an old standard.

14. Space Walk- Lemon Jelly
Another entry from these dudes, this song is wonderfully chilled and has a tinkling piano riff very reminiscent of rain. It lives up to its name and you can very easily imagine floating through the air to this song. Maybe above raining clouds. That would be a sight.

15. No Rain- Blind Melon
A bright little gem of a song :) reflective and happy, a true rain watching song. Look it up.

16. It Never Rains In Southern California- Albert Hammond
A classic tune by the dad of The Strokes' lead guitarist, it's captivatingly melodic and very Beatles like, and tells a true "grass isn't always greener" story.

17. Rain King- Counting Crows
The criminallly under-lauded Counting Crows have the ability to churn out awesome Americana tunes again and again. Downbeat lyrics along with a driving and upbeat musicality serve to make this one of those obviously American songs that you can listen to and still feel as if your artistic integrity is intact!

Why did I pick seventeen? Who knows. Feel free to comment with any more suggestions or rain songs.

Happy rain!

Rainy Town

There is a town somewhere, entwined around, laced across and running through a hill. The town is narrow, all the buildings taller than they are wide, all sardined together, walls white and slanted slate and steel rooves grey. The streets are like veins, thin and grey, almost blue, the tiny lines that carry life everywheere. They twist and turn and spin and loop and bend and veer and split and lead inescapably back, outlining the compressed buildings.
The town is so pressed it looks and feels like it could once have been a bigger town, sprawling like a puddle for uncharted, roaming miles, with gaping streets and discernible outlines, but some gigantic grey hand swept this metropolis up and rolled and pushed it untl it was this thin.
Like rolling up a newspaper, normally a vast sea of detail, spread out, every letter available, telling its own story. Space, air, freedom to roam, see the bigger picture. But when its rolled up, these tiny letters are thrown together, pressed up, gagging for air, barely enough space to be seen let alone tell their stories or discern themselves in the newspaer's entirety. It's clear when you see this rolled up paper that its full of life, characters, places, pictures, corners, little beauties. But they can't, for their sheer confusion and proximity, be seen.

And in the town it is always raining. Always raining.
And beautiful echoing siren voices chim throuogh the city veins, constantly there, but the citizens tune them out.
Vistitors suddenly become aware of them, rising from a drain or dropping from a pipe. One of those things you realise then wonder how you could tune it out when it's so present.
And all the time, underscored by the sounds of rain.

Rhys Laverty

From Your True Lover

We pretend to love the sun,
but the thunder and the rain stir our souls.
We keep it secret, just a whisper.

But the lightning and the water make us feel clean.

Like ghosts, free, in the dark,
for once unafraid of the shadows.

We love rainstorms at night,
purging and fresh,
glorious and beautiful.
Full of life, cascading redemption.

Droplets so frersh they break through the skin,
deep slumbering rumbles of satisfaction,
streaks of blistering light like new thoughts, strokes of genius.

And when the water trickles away,
swallowed,
and the sun defiles what was fresh,
and burns the blue and black and green,
it is all like an affair in the night,
an unexpected, tremulous, quivering, sensual visit
from your true lover.

Rhys Laverty