No one makes mixtapes anymore, and they probably don't even burn discs. The Orioles and Royals have waited a long time to get to the ALCS. They might wait a little longer, so here are some songs about rain to pass the time.
The Baltimore forecast for Friday evening calls for some serious rain, lending credence to the idea that the reason the Orioles and Royals have failed to reach the World Series since 1983 and 1985, respectively, is that Someone Up There doesn't like them. A more proximate and provable cause was decades of human incompetence, but nothing says it can't be both.
On one of our recent postseason-free nights, I came across the John Cusack film High Fidelity, a picture which spends a good deal of time on the making of mixtapes as an act of intimacy. The cassette tape is deader than the dinosaurs, so I wondered if young romantics attach the same value to emailing someone they're attracted to a bunch of links. It doesn't seem like it would feel the same. We can give it a shot in a post format, though, and see if we can pass the time dwelling on the rain that might or might not interfere with tonight's contest. In no particular order:
"Rain" -- The Beatles (1966)
A John Lennon composition and the B-side to "Paperback Writer," it features the first backwards vocals in rock ("Naaaaaaaair!") and one notably sloppy drum fill by Ringo Starr, who might have been worse for wear. Inspirational lyric:
When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead
"It's Raining Again" -- Supertramp (1982)
One of the jolliest songs about rain. "It's raining again. Too bad I'm losing a friend." Roger Hodgson doesn't seem all that concerned.
"Here Comes the Rain Again" -- The Eurythmics (1984)
A depressed song you can dance to:
Here comes the rain again
Raining in my head like a tragedy...
Is it raining with you?
"Love, Reign O'er Me" -- The Who (1973)
Yeah, it says "reign" rather than "rain," but the song begins with the sound of rain and the lyrics make it clear that Pete Townshend was taking advantage of the homophones.
Dismissed in its time for not being "Tommy" or "Who's Next," "Quadrophenia," of which "Love, Reign" is the climax, is chronically underrated. It does, however, mark the last moment lead vocalist Roger Daltrey was a singer rather than a shouter. Appropriately, the B-side was "Water."
"Mandolin Rain" -- Bruce Horsnby (1986)
Bruce Hornsby might have had two of the sulkiest no. 1 hits in history with "The Way It Is" and this track. "I'll do my time keeping you off my mind, but there's moments that I find I'm not feeling so strong." The '80s weren't as much fun as you might imagine. Shaky economy, international tensions at a high peak, environment crashing, strange and deadly viruses out of Africa... it was a lot like... now.
"I Think It's Going to Rain Today" -- Randy Newman (1968)
You knew this had to be here, right? Covered perhaps 100 times without ever being a hit, it's a cult item. I think of it as a suicide song, but some versions have tried to be upbeat. Off to hell, jiggety-jig.
Pausing here to skip past Guns N' Roses' anti-rock "November Rain," here's an earlier example of the mainstream trying to homogenize punk, Buddy Holly going from rockabilly to middle-of-the-road pop with strings:
"Raining in My Heart" -- Buddy Holly (1959)
If you require Holly in this mode, go with "True Love Ways" from the same session. The words make less sense ("Our true love ways will bring us joys to share with those who really care?"), the arrangement is just as pop but less like being hit on the head with a blunt object, and unlike "Raining," it's an original Holly composition in which the singer's sincerity -- Holly is speaking to his wife -- cuts through the banality of the lyrics.
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" -- B.J. Thomas (1969)
A Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition, complete with signature horns and time change at the end, this was the Academy Award-winner for Best Original Song, having debuted in the Robert Redford-Paul Newman Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." What is a '60s pop song doing in the middle of an 1890s-set Western? Damned if I know, and no one knew then either. It stops the movie, and even some in the production were confused by its presence. Somehow it works anyway. Later, the movie stops itself with an endless chase sequence that is paced at a turtle's resting heart rate and in which you never see the pursuers, but now we're into film criticism, not music.
"So. Central Rain" -- R.E.M. (1984)
"Did you never call? I waited for your call. These rivers of suggestion are driving me away... I'm sorry." Sure, rain can result in rivers of suggestion. More often it's sewage from flooded treatment plants, but maybe that's the same thing.
"Raining Twilight Coast" -- Robyn Hitchcock (1990)
Some reviewers refer to Hitchcock's "Eye" as a collection of acoustic leftovers, but in the album's original configuration it had a preponderance of incredibly bitter breakup songs (re-releases with extra tracks have diluted this somewhat). This is one of them.
"I'm on a raining twilight coast
Sending out postcards to the one i love
And the rain falls up from the ground
No one sees it, 'cause there's no one around
Just one thing, baby, you forgot my heart"
Sure, it's an obscurity, but it's also my mixtape. Mixpost. Yours might have "Don't Let the Rain Come Down" or "Rain on the Roof" and on a different day I might agree with you. We have a lot of choices here. Just a couple more coming, though, and you can remind me of all the ones I missed should you be so motivated.
"Rhythm of the Falling Rain" -- The Cascades (1962)
I don't know if you can get much more MOR than this one, but I find it to be affecting. "The only girl I care about is gone away... When she left that day along with her she took my heart... Rain... I can't love another when my heart's somewhere far away." We've all been there. Getting over a broken romance is a process of acceptance and habituation. We call that "healing," but it seems more like just getting used to it. We bypass those neural pathways that liked the other, but they remain on standby for us to access when we want to be reminded of what the pain felt like.
"Here Comes the Flood" -- Peter Gabriel (1977)
Of course, sometimes you never do get over it. It doesn't stop raining.
The song originally appeared on Gabriel's first post-Genesis album. This version is from a Robert Fripp album from a couple of years later. It's a stronger arrangement, the irony of which is that it was pared way down from the original.
"In the thunder crash... Don't be afraid to cry at what you see." You know, like Omar Infante's contract.
Let's end up. Singing in the rain is an inversion. Rain is something we're supposed to shrink from, but almost any environment short of a battlefield can be a playground when you're in love, and who could not love two teams 30 or so years removed from the World Series and knowing that no matter what happens one of them is sure to go back? In this October's ALCS, even the losers will be winners. And so to Gene Kelly and one of the best performances in any medium ever. The song was old even when performed it here, but the knowledge that joy can conquer anything is eternal. We can wait one more day if we have to.
"Singin' in the Rain" -- Gene Kelly (1952)
from SBNation.com - All Posts http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/10/10/6956817/alcs-game-1-baltimore-rain
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