Here in the Zone and elsewhere in the West we are getting a much-needed soaking. And that puts me in mind of my favorite rain songs.
Fire and Rain is particularly appropriate for California: first the wildfires strip the land of vegetation, then the rains come and bring on mudslides. Didn't James Taylor have an album called Mudslide Slim?
Dee Clark, Raindrops. Cascades, Rythm of the Rain (1963).
The Beatles' Rain 'blew my mind' back in '66.
And of course there is the lovely Gordon Lightfoot composition, Early Morning Rain, here performed in 1966 by PP&M. Dylan's version is also very nice.
Speaking of America's troubadour, we cannot omit his Hard Rain, written in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dylan was a great writer of topical songs because he knew how to make them poetic and not too obvious.
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35? Dylan's worst song. Doesn't deserve a link. But his "Buckets of Rain" (from Blood on the Tracks) is another story. Here is Maria Muldaur's version. Remember her? And Dave van Ronk's.