Rain Songs

“Rainsong”
Moodswings

Moodswings – Rainsong

This is not on Spotify, Amazon or Apple…

But it’s in my heart.

Music used to be precious, it used to be rare, to get on a label’s mailing list was the holy grail, and this came out on Arista.

Hmm… They didn’t usually release this type of thing, I’ve got no idea what the deal was, literally, but they put out not only the album but a two-pack of CD singles, somebody was behind this, but it got no traction.

When it rains in L.A. it pours, and I believe it was back in ’92, the year this album, “Moodfood,” was released, that it poured for six out of seven days.

Funny to be in the metropolis and unable to leave your house. I remember I got sick of being inside so I journeyed out to Norm’s, a low-rent diner/dinner place that had these specials, including salad and sundae, for an insanely low price, I got hooked on them. And I was driving down Pico and hit a big puddle…you can drown your engine, it happens. It was almost as white-knuckle as driving in a snowstorm.

Anyway, when I think of “Rainsong” I think of that time.

And my ex-wife coming to my house two years later.

Now actually, “Moodfood” is famous for two reasons. One is it contains the definitive version of John Anderson/Vangelis’s “State of Independence,” in this iteration entitled “Spiritual High,” with Chrissie Hynde taking the lead vocal.

The most well-known take on “State of Independence” is on Donna Summer’s 1982 LP, her first for Geffen, produced by Quincy Jones. An album produced by Giorgio Moroder was shelved, and this was made in its place, and it wasn’t really successful, even though all these years later it resonates, even though Donna Summer is dead, my how time flies. The “hit” on the album is “Love Is In Control (Finger on the Trigger),” which wears its age pretty well, but the killer was always track number three, “The Woman In Me,” talk about smoky and sexy…

The other reason “Moodfood” is famous is it contains an exquisite instrumental entitled “Skinthieves” that features blistering guitar work by Jeff Beck. This was before his “comeback,” when Seattle was booming and Slash was slaying, but no one can hold a candle to Beck, you know it’s him from the very first note. And I’d put the CD in the drawer and play “Skinthieves” over and over again. But sometimes I’d forget to hit the single play repeat button and it would drift into the following track, “Rainsong,” that’s how I’ve discovered so many of my favorites.

Caught in a rainstorm
Wondering what I must do
I’m standing alone
So many miles from you

In today’s WSJ they’ve got the story of the making of Hall & Oates’s “She’s Gone.” Oates wrote the chorus, but the verses were written by Hall, who was getting divorced and just couldn’t get over it. Everybody was telling him his bad mood would pass, but it didn’t feel like that to him. Divorce, the scourge of America, it eviscerates your belief in trust.

I was thinking about our life together
Knowing it must be now or never
To get back to you

I hadn’t seen her in years, but we were not divorced. I’d lost everything, from my father to a body part to all my money. I held on to this marriage, believing it was the only thing that could save me, it was not. But on this last night she ever came to my house I showed her what I’d written, it was brilliant, she had her legs over mine as she read it, she made no comment, and this was the last time she ever walked through my front door.

“Mamunia”
Paul McCartney and Wings

The next time you see L.A. rain clouds
Don’t complain it rains for you and me

McCartney was not on a roll. He’d lost most of his credibility.

And then he put out the best album of the year, “Band On The Run,” but it took a long time for the world to catch up with it. It came out at the end of ’73 and I bought it based on the amazing reviews and I remember playing it all day as I futzed with the lock on my dorm room door.

It was a different era. “Band On The Run” blew your mind, but it was months before it became a single and most people knew it. Kind of like “Hotel California,” the radio was all over “New Kid In Town,” but when you dropped the needle on the title track the day the LP came out you couldn’t believe what was coming out of the speakers.

Now when I played “Mamunia” I’d been to L.A., actually just the summer before, but despite knowing the Albert Hammond song, I really did not know it never rained in Southern California, but it’s gonna rain tomorrow, and “Mamunia” is going through my head in anticipation.

“Rain”
The Beatles

It was the flip side of “Paperback Writer.” They don’t make upbeat music like that anymore, that touches your soul and forces you to get out of your chair and boogie. But the flip side was the the opposite, it was dark and moody, and contained backward vocals, and we all knew this.

“The Rain Song”
Led Zeppelin

I never need to hear “D’yer Mak’er” ever again. I hated it then and I still don’t cotton to it today. My favorite song on “Houses Of The Holy” was always the second side opener, “Dancing Days,” which is well known today, but was rarely heard on the radio back then.

I just don’t get how people say “Houses Of The Holy” is the best Zeppelin album. Even worse, there’s now a whole coterie who say “III” is the best, huh?

Up until recently, everybody seemed to agree the best was “IV,” which, being the contrary person I am, I could never agree with. But I love “IV” now, ironically not for the big famous tracks. I won’t say I turn off “Stairway To Heaven” every time I hear it, but I don’t need to hear it, as for “Black Dog” and “Rock and Roll”…I heard them on the jukebox every night at Tony’s Pizza in Middlebury, Vermont, but they too are not my favorites.

Let’s start with “When The Levee Breaks.” It’s all about the heaviness of Bonzo’s drums, quite possibly the heaviest rock track ever cut, not to discount Jimmy’s exquisite playing and Plant’s peals.

But my real favorite is “The Battle Of Evermore,” if it weren’t for it, almost nobody would remember Sandy Denny…and do you ever get her and Madeline Bell confused? They didn’t look alike, but Madeline played the Sandy role on Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells A Story,” providing the vocal abrasives.

And the third in my triumvirate of “IV” favorites is “Going To California,” that’s what made Zeppelin legendary, they could rock…and they could roll, quietly.

For a long time the first album was my favorite. I loved it from the first note of “Good Times Bad Times,” and then came “Communication Breakdown” but the heart of the album is the quieter, slower numbers. I’ll start with “Dazed And Confused,” then “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and finish with “Your Time Is Gonna Come, which I sing to myself when I’m skiing alone on dark days…

Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’, that’s all you seem to do
Messing around with every guy in town
Putting me down for thinking of someone new
Always the same, playing your game
Drive me insane, trouble is gonna come to you
One of these days and it won’t be long
You’ll look for me but baby I’ll be gone
That is all I gotta say to you woman

YOUR TIME IS GONNA COME

You tell yourself when you’re on the losing end of distance. Is it correct? Not always.

But then I lived with six other guys and one woman, a wife, in a condo in Mammoth Lakes and skied for the month of May ’75 and Jimmy Kay played his eight track of “Physical Graffiti” every day to the point where it revealed itself to me, I thought I was burned out on Zeppelin, I thought I could never hear “II” again, but I was brought back, primarily by “Kashmir” and “Ten Years Gone”…and “Trampled Under Foot” and “In The Light” and “Down By The Seaside” (what a set-up for “Ten Years Gone”) and “Night Flight” and “Boogie With Stu” and…”In My Time Of Dying.”

“Ashes The Rain And I”
James Gang

I could be the only person on the planet who prefers the debut, “Yer’ Album” to “Rides Again,” but despite “Funk #49” being the breakthrough on “Rides Again,” this cut was always my favorite, people forget that Joe Walsh isn’t all bombast and humor, that he’s got a soft, sensitive side too, but my second favorite cut on “Rides Again” is “The Bomber…”

“Box Of Rain”
The Grateful Dead”

And I seem to be the only person who prefers “Workingman’s Dead” to “American Beauty.”

“Coloured Rain”
Al Kooper

The original is on the first Traffic LP, but Al does the definitive version, overproduced, as opposed to the underproduced original, with horns and sound effects, “I Stand Alone” is a classic.

“Early Morning Rain”
Gordon Lightfoot

You missed it, he still plays, but he can no longer sing.

Gordon did great work, but I must admit I prefer his latter hit the best, “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald,” which sounds like you’re really on a boat on Lake Superior, in a no cell zone, where it’s just the wind and your thoughts.

“Same Old Lang Syne”
Dan Fogelberg

This is how I met Irving Azoff. I wrote about this song and he insisted I come to his office at MCA so he could tell me the real story.

I always liked this number, but speaking of the mailing list…Epic sent a double LP Live album in ’91 entitled “Greetings From The West” and it contains the definitive version of “Same Old Lang Syne.”

And as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain

That’s the worst, it’s so depressing, snow is so lovely, it makes you feel good, but when it changes into rain, especially when it lands on snow…ick.

“I Wish It Would Rain”
The Faces

Speaking of Rod Stewart…

This is from the final Faces LP, a live one, “Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners,” which I purchased, because I was such a Rod Stewart fan, the guy he was, not the one he turned out to be, but I didn’t play it much.

“Mandolin Rain”
Bruce Hornsby and the Range

From the amazing initial Hornsby LP, which contained the legendary “The Way It Is”…do you know what it was like hearing that piano come out of the radio in the summer of ’86, I immediately had to run out and buy the album, and I was not disappointed. “Mandolin Rain” is probably the second best song, but I like “Down The Road Tonight” with Huey Lewis just after he became HUEY LEWIS!

“Neon Rainbow”

Does this qualify as a rain song? I’m not sure. This was a surprise after “The Letter,” this was before Big Star, before we knew he was ALEX CHILTON, then again, after his name was in capitals I saw him in a bar in Downtown L.A.

“Raining On Sunday”
Keith Urban

From when he still thought he could do no wrong, from before his disappointment with “Defying Gravity,” after he intellectualized his career, went for safety with pop “hits.” The original is by Radney Foster, but this is one of the rare instances where the cover is superior to the original. I’ll include Foster’s version for comparison, but then I’m tempted to include “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me,” from the same Urban LP, “Golden Road,” my second favorite cut of his, with such a great message, you know…

And the sun is shinin’
This road keeps windin’
Through the prettiest country
From Georgia to Tennessee
And I got the one I love beside me
My trouble behind me
I’m alive and I’m free
Who wouldn’t wanna be me

“Rain On The Roof”
Lovin’ Spoonful

All we hear is “Summer In The City,” maybe “Do You Believe In Magic,” John Sebastian lost his voice and his image is tarred from his rainbow outfit at Woodstock and therefore his brilliance is never noted.

My second favorite is “Six O’Clock,” which I did not know because it wasn’t a big single on New York radio, but I heard it during a battle of the bands at the Jewish Community Center and never forgot it…the band that played it won! Remember that era, when we’d go to the gym for a battle of the bands, talk about passe.

But my absolute favorite is “Darlin’ Be Home Soon”… I didn’t truly realize how great it was until I heard the cover on Joe Cocker’s second LP, but this song is just about as good as it gets.

“I Can Stand The Rain”
Lowell George

From his so-so solo album just before he O.D.’ed.

I’m thinking either no one will know Lowell George in the future or everybody will. That’s how it is. Sometimes the secondary figures are prominent in the future, look at Lowell’s work…he added spice, and never too much.

“Buckets Of Rain”
Bob Dylan

The last song on “Blood On The Tracks,” for a long time it was my favorite, so simple… Does anybody talk about “Meet Me In The Morning” but me?

“Rain”
Patty Griffin

From her masterpiece, “1000 Kisses.”

Once upon a time it mattered that A&M killed that Patty Griffin LP, but all these years later Patty and her style of music gets no traction in the world, making it a much harsher place.

“Baby The Rain Must Fall”
Glenn Yarbrough

I completely forgot this track until I got satellite radio and heard it and it sounded so good.

“Cry Like A Rainstorm”
Bonnie Raitt

Far superior to the ultimate Linda Ronstadt version, if Ronstadt gets a documentary, doesn’t Raitt deserve one? With her ups and downs, more honest instead of a whitewash?

Of course, Eric Kaz wrote the tune, I’m gonna include it here, so he gets some recognition.

“Delta Rain”
The Blessing

The right album at the wrong time, released just as grunge was emerging, “Prince Of The Deep Water” tanked.

The band was managed by my friend. In a gesture of good faith he tore up the contract and then the band left him, it always happens this way.

I still remember him playing me the demo at his house on Monument in the Palisades, he said “Don’t blow me out of the water on this..” and then pushed play. I’m a harsh critic, I never hear a good demo, but I loved this and told him so.

This is probably the best song on the album, which some say was overproduced, but I don’t think so. It was produced by Neil Dorfsman, who was so hot, but then he called it a day.

So did my friend, he committed suicide, not over this, but I wish he were here now so I could tell him how great this track still is.

“When It’s Raining”
The Samples

Jim Lewi was working for Rob Gordon, he told me they were putting out an album by the Samples, who’d left Arista after their first album, this was back in ’92, before it was a badge of honor to be on an indie, I did not know the band, I figured the record would suck…anything but.

This is the opening cut on “No Room,” the band’s best work, but “Transmissions From The Sea Of Tranquility” is really good too, with the version of “The Last Drag,” as a matter of fact all the Samples albums have winners, Sean Kelly was and is a real musical talent, just a bad businessman.

Listening to “The Last Drag” right now…makes me want to cry, that was so long ago, I’m connecting with who I used to be, before the internet both blew apart my life and saved it.

“Rainy Day Man”
James Taylor

From the very first album, on Apple, the definitive version, just before the magical cover of “Circle ‘Round The Sun.” This is the LP with the original, fast version of “Carolina In My Mind.” It does not contain “Fire And Rain” which I could not listen to for a long time but still resonates when I hear it now, but my favorite cut today is the title track, “Sweet Baby James,” with its lines…

Now the first of December was covered with snow
So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Though the Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

The Mass Pike had tolls, they gave you this card when you got on, do they still have them, I haven’t been on it in years.

And I know the Berkshires by heart, but Mt. Tom is no longer a ski area and the snow so often turns to rain there, south of Vermont.

Spring sprung a few weeks back in L.A. I felt it, the sun was brighter, it boosted my mood, but really I’m more of a winter guy, I don’t want the snow to go, maybe next time we’ll do snow.
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