Swizzle Stick

Four Rain Songs from my Youth

1.I Love a Rainy Night - Eddie Rabbitt
I am fourteen & I have arrived at the local community hall for my first lesson in tap. I have a pair of black hand-me-down tap shoes in my tote bag & a leotard under my track pants, as advised. I had signed up for tap enthusiastically, having always wished to learn, but noted with dismay that I was the oldest, the tallest, of the new dance class by far. We stood in a line, copying the steps of the teacher out the front. Straight tap, ball heel, shuffle. Beginner moves, simple steps to a loud recording of I Love a Rainy Night, a song I loathe. All the other students in the tapdancing class, all about six years old, turn their faces to stare at me, puzzled, hostile, confused: what are YOU doing here? I am horribly embarrassed. I do not attend the next tap dancing class, or any other tap dancing class ever again.





2. Rain by Dragon
I am a sixteen & this song is everywhere, such a popular song, heard in the supermarket, at the shopping centre, in the car on the radio, blaring from other cars passing on the highways. In its minor key i find it wistful & pretentious, & I get so irritated with everyone dreamily singing along with the chorus, all faraway eyes like they deeply understand, & are moved by, the profound poetic message of the lyrics . . . which repeat If you go out in the rain / We'll never have that time again - what, because if one stays indoors, time repeats itself over & over? I am also irritated by the use of rhetorical questions: Is it any wonder? streets are dark; Is it any wonder? we fall apart. Oh, such poetic depth through direct address to the sensitive listener's sensibilities! *snort * I understand, of course, that the Rain of this song is a metaphor, but I don't think it's a very good one.





3. Have You Ever Seen the Rain? - Creedence Clearwater Revival

I am seventeen & watching Lorraine Campbell-Craig perform her glamorous old-school drag show at Patches, a club on Sydney's Oxford Street. I am slinky in thick black eyeliner & a black satin corset & a wig of fire-truck red, & I lean graciously on my two glamorous friends, because my black leather boots are killing me after lots & lots of dancing. When Lorraine's drag act finishes, we as an audience bawl out badly I wanna know -oh-oh, have you ever seen Lorraine?, a running joke, the joke being Lorraine's haughty irritation at hearing the same, dumb, altered lyric shouted out at her following every performance. I don't exactly feel sorry for Lorraine, but I do tell myself that I won't participate in the dumb joke next time. Little do I know that the next time, the joke & the song will change, for Lorraine is wearing purple . . .




4. Purple Rain - Prince

I am eighteen & I am lying on a chaise longue on the rooftop of a friend's apartment building, a needy cocker spaniel by my side. It is summer, it is sunset, & the light up here is magical, as though stage-managed, or photo-shopped. My friend, who insisted I stay up here with the dog, is downstairs, making a jug of sangria. I can hear her music up here, & her singing. Her voice is strong but she seems to be struggling with the key of B flat major & the discordant sound makes the spaniel suck in his ears. Overhead there is no rain, but purple appears with the pink & gold of the celebrating sky, & my bare limbs are rendered purple & gold, & luminous, & I remember thinking Oh, I will remember this forever.