What I learned from Country Music: Rain, persistence, love, and living in Georgia
I realized from a life of listening to country music that there were a lot of country songs about rain — or songs that centered around or featured rain. I didn’t realize that these songs were popular enough to have been grouped together and written about already, but I’ve definitely been beat to the punch.
Being from Georgia, I appreciate something about the rain. From 1986–2007 Georgia had experienced ‘drought’ or ‘severe drought’ 12 of the 21 years and this year we’re seeing issues of drought resurfacing. Georgia is constantly in a water war with Tennessee above us and Florida below us.
Having it rain is important. Beyond the issues of a drought, which can be hard to explain as issues when you’re fortunate enough to have a faucet that always produces water when you turn it on, rain can lower sweltering heat and help deal with smog in the air. Of course all of these things are things that I’ve learned more recently. None of these things are things that I learned from country music growing up.
But it was country songs like these that helped to shape me into the person that I am. And who I am is a person who is concerned about drought and a person who very often hopes for rain.
Below the cut, I’ll talk about four country songs about rain, what they mean to me and how they influenced the person I am today.
“Bring on the Rain” by Jo Dee Messina (Feat. Tim McGraw)
“Bring on the Rain” is probably my favorite song on this list. Messina is the only woman who made it onto the list and she well represents. The song starts off describing the situation of someone who seems at the end of their rope:
Another day has almost come and gone
Can’t imagine what else could go wrong
Sometimes I’d like to hide away somewhere and lock the door
A single battle lost but not the war
The chorus is: “Tomorrow’s another day // And I’m thirsty anyway // So bring on the rain.”
And that’s always been a strong message for me. I tend to get bogged down in the moment and lost in my anxiety. Concerned about how to do everything and get everything done. When I listen to “Bring on the Rain” Messina reminds me that there’s always tomorrow and that I don’t have to do it all in a single day before collapsing down into bed, exhausted.
The second lyric to the song goes:
It’s almost like the hard times circle ‘round
A couple drops and they all start coming down
Yeah, I might feel defeated,
And I might hang my head
I might be barely breathing — but I’m not dead, no
I like this lyric because as someone who deals with depression, I sometimes lose a lot of time. What is important to remember though is that life is long, and it goes on. I’m not dead, and tomorrow is still another day.
This song has especially meant a lot to me as I’ve gone through college. College has come with a lot of interesting moments: Not sleeping in my own bed, walking to campus, eating instant noodles, submitting papers and quizzes on my smartphone and spending a lot of time at the library when I didn’t have internet at the house. And on the better days I am able to approach every obstacle with a can-do attitude, and that’s thanks to this song.
“Raining on Sunday” by Keith Urban
Back in January, at the start of a new semester, as I was walking to my first Friday class (Communication Theory) it was pouring rain. As I walked from my apartment to my class with my umbrella that was somewhere between uselessly- and harmfully- small I was getting soaked. By time I got to my class my feet were wet, I was miserable and, it turned out even the stuff in my book bag was wet! I ended up having to pay the difference on a book I’d originally rented due to water damage.
Anyone who has been out in the rain appreciates being inside when its raining, especially when its raining hard. There are phrases such as “A rainy day fund” and we keep games and books and TV shows put aside for rainy days. There’s something comforting about the cool breeze of a hard rain. When you’re inside with a warm beverage, the dark clouds don’t seem so threatening.
In Keith Urban’s “When It’s Raining on Sunday” he explores the idea of taking advantage of a rainy Sunday to take a break from the busy-hectic-never-ending-ness of life.
It ticks just like a Timex
It never lets up on you
Who said life was easy
The job is never through
It’ll run us ’til we’re ragged
It’ll harden our hearts
And love could use a day of rest
Before we both start falling apart
And what better way to enjoy that break than with that someone that your with.
Pray that it’s raining on Sunday
Stormin’ like crazy
We’ll hide under the covers all afternoon
Baby whatever comes Monday
Can take care of itself
’Cause we got better things that we could do
When it’s raining on Sunday
I love that country songs depend on implication. Like some might infer that this part of the song is talking about sex, but growing up (obviously?) I never thought it was about sex, I just thought it was about cuddling (that could also be because I’m asexual).
I’m very much a stay-in type of person, and as a romantic partner, I would very much enjoy hiding under the cover all afternoon, with good books to read to each other, with good music, with Netflix and with kisses.
“She’s My Kind of Rain” by Tim McGraw
Around the time I was in middle school and continuing into high school, when I started to actually learn and remember the name of the musicians I listened to, and the songs of their’s that I liked, Tim McGraw became one of my favorite artists.
He has plenty of love songs in his repetoire, and to me, this one has always stood out. While “Don’t Take The Girl” spins a much more intricate narrative tale and is probably more well known, I like the metaphor of “She’s My Kind of Rain” more, especially thinking about rain from the context Georgia, where drought is all too common, and many people long for rain.
She’s my kind of rain
Like love in a drunken sky
She’s confetti falling
Down all night
She sits quietly there
Like water in a jar
Says, “Baby why are you
Trembling like you are?”
So I wait and I try
I confess like a child
She’s my kind of rain
Like love from a drunken sky
Confetti falling down all night
She’s my kind of rain
She’s the sun set shadows
She’s like Rembrandt’s light
She’s the history
That’s made at night
She’s my lost companion
She’s my dreaming tree
Together in this brief
Eternity
Summer days, winter snows
She’s all things to behold
She’s my kind of rain
Like love from a drunken sky
Confetti falling down all night
She’s my kind of rain
So I wait and I try
I confess all my crimes
These lyrics are so beautifully written.
“Like The Rain” by Clint Black
Though Clint Black’s “Like The Rain” is last on this list, it is most certainly not least. In fact, I would say that it’s my second favorite song on this list. Black’s singing style are unique and stand-out-to me.
Though predominantly a love song, this song also has themes of perseverance similar to Messina’s “Bring On The Rain”.
I never liked the rain until I walked through it with you
Every thunder cloud that came was one more I might not get through
On the darkest day there’s always light and now I see it too
But I never liked the rain until I walked through it with you
I hear it falling in the night and filling up my mind
All the heaven’s rivers come to light I see it all unwind
I hear it talking through the trees and on the window pane
When I hear it I just can’t believe I never liked the rain
It is unfortunate that it took the protagonist of this song falling in love to discover that ‘On the darkest day there’s always light’, and of course one should never depend on being in a relationship to be happy, one should never invest all of their happiness into a relationship (I learned that the hard way), but relationships inevitably teach us things. However you learn it, it’s important to know that there’s always a silver lining.
Honorable Mention
“Holes In The Floor of Heaven” by Steve Wariner
This song doesn’t center rain as much as others do. It does include one line about the rain pouring down and I’m including it because it centers on how to deal with grief and when someone close to you dies.
The opening lyric sets up the scenario:
One day shy of eight years old, my grandma passed away
i was a broken hearted little boy, blowing out that birthday cake
how i cried when the sky let go, with a cold and lonesome rain,
mamma smiled, said don’t be sad child, grandma’s watching you today
The chorus is where most of the power of the song is:
cause theres holes in the floor of heaven
and her tears are pouring down,
that’s how you know she’s watching,
wishing she could be here now,
and sometimes if your lonely,
just remember she can see,
there’s holes in the floor of heaven,
and she’s watching over you and me
Rain has a lot of beautiful symbolism. It is a beautiful part of the natural world. It deserves to be respected and appreciated. I wonder in the way these songs that I grew up listening to and that I still love have so eloquently used rain to explore a number of different and varied topics.
