It's Raining Again
| "It's Raining Again" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| B-side | "Bonnie" |
"It's Raining Again" is a song recorded by British progressive rock band Supertramp and released as a single from their 1982 album …Famous Last Words… with credits given to Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, although as indicated on the album sleeve, it is a Hodgson composition.[Note 1] The end of the song incorporates the old nursery rhyme "It's Raining, It's Pouring".
All of the voices on the studio version of the track are Hodgson's. In live versions on the accompanying Famous Last Words tour, John Helliwell and Scott Page sang the lower harmonies on stage while Hodgson sang higher parts. For the most part, the song is upbeat. It contains a brief melodica solo by Rick Davies, originally thought to be by John Helliwell until proved incorrect by a French radio interview.
Music video
The song's video was directed by future Highlander director Russell Mulcahy and conceptualized by Keith Williams.
In the video, a man drives a beat-up convertible through a dust storm to a small town cafe to bring a bouquet to his girlfriend, who is a waitress there. A co-worker hands him a Dear John letter. After having his parked car ticketed for heading the wrong way, he spends a forgettable night at the Pickwick Drive-In movie "Famous Last Words" (reminding viewers about Supertramp's album), seeing himself on the film, watching another couple embrace in the car next to his, and meeting a small child with silver teeth, who points out that his car's left rear wheel is missing.
The next day the man, now on the street outside the cafe without his car, kisses the young girl, leaves the bouquet with her, and with his suitcase boards a bus to downtown Los Angeles. An uninterested guitar-playing passenger props his long legs onto the seat in front of him, next to a lady putting on lipstick and wearing a white wig that receives a paper airplane thrown by another passenger. Awakened by the driver at the station, the man, now the last passenger still on the bus, finds himself without anything in his pockets, presumably having been robbed, but still with his suitcase. He thumbs down two rednecks in a pickup truck, who find him easy pickings for practical jokes, pitch him onto Hollywood Boulevard, and throw his suitcase onto him. After a short walk, encountering more rough people, the man suffers a back alley beating in which he is stripped to his underwear and robbed of his suitcase. An old lady gives him an orange umbrella just before rain begins to drench the alley. In spite of a sea of black umbrellas, he accidentally runs into his true love, who is under a white umbrella, and the two embrace and dance together in the rain. The sea of black umbrellas disappears. This final encounter is what had appeared and now appears at the end of the aforementioned drive-in movie. As the camera pulls back, the couple in the convertible now has two children in the back seat while the song fades out with the children's nursery rhyme "it's raining, it's pouring..."
The five members of Supertramp make cameo appearances in the video. At the beginning, John Helliwell is a street musician playing an alto saxophone. Before the first chorus, Dougie Thomson appears as the bus driver (this was the last filmed video where Thomson would appear with his then trademark moustache and beard). Hodgson plays the uninterested guitar-playing bus passenger. Lastly, Rick Davies and Bob Siebenberg play the two pickup truck rednecks.
Track listings
7" vinyl
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "It's Raining Again" | 4:25 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Bonnie" | 5:37 |
Chart performance
The song debuted at No. 31 on 30 October 1982 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the highest debut on that chart for all of 1982, and peaked at No. 11. The record was a big success on the European charts, reaching the top 10 in Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland. This was the group's last top forty hit on the United Kingdom singles chart.
| Chart (1982-83) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart[1] | 26 |
| Austrian Singles Chart[2] | 7 |
| Canadian RPM Singles Chart[3] | 4 |
| Dutch GfK Charts[4] | 6 |
| Dutch Top 40[5] | 6 |
| France (IFOP) | 1 |
| German Singles Chart[6] | 3 |
| Irish Singles Chart[7] | 16 |
| New Zealand (RIANZ) | 19 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart[8] | 6 |
| South Africa[9] | 6 |
| Swiss Singles Chart[10] | 2 |
| US Billboard Hot 100[11] | 11 |
| US Billboard Adult Contemporary[11] | 5 |
| US Billboard Mainstream Rock[11] | 7 |
| US Cash Box Top 100[12] | 7 |
Personnel
- Roger Hodgson – grand piano, lead and backing vocals
- Dougie Thomson – bass guitar
- Bob Siebenberg – drums
- Rick Davies – additional synthesizers, melodica solo
- John Helliwell – baritone (middle of song) and tenor saxophones, synthesizers
In popular culture
The song plays on Fox Networks NASCAR coverage in the USA whenever the rain interrupts activities.
Notes
- ^ Like John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles, Hodgson and Davies joined writer's credits from 1974 until 1983, when Hodgson left the band to pursue a solo career.
References
- ^ "Chart Stats - Supertramp - It's Raining Again". Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ "Supertramp - It's Raining Again - austriancharts.at". Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ "Top Singles - Volume 37, No. 18, December 18, 1982". RPM. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "dutchcharts.nl - Supertramp - It's Raining Again". Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ "De Nederlandse Top 40, week 47, 1982". Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2009.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "charts-surfer.de search results". Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ "irishcharts.ie search results". Archived from the original on 1 February 2010. Retrieved 22 February 2009.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "norwegiancharts.com - Supertramp - It's Raining Again". Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2009.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "South African Charts 1965-1989".
- ^ "Supertramp - It's Raining Again - hitparade.ch". Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ a b c "allmusic - Supertramp - Billboard singles". Retrieved 22 February 2009.
- ^ Cash Box Top 100 Singles, January 15, 1983