ROD STEWART - HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAIN

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

ROD STEWART

songwriter: Jonh Fogerty

country: u. k.

ALBUM: PENDULUM

LABEL: FANTASY

GENRE: roots ROCK

YEAR: 1971

 

           Sir Roderick David Stewart CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock and pop singer, songwriter and record producer. With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 250 million records worldwide. He has had ten number-one albums and 31 top ten singles in the UK, six of which reached number one. Stewart has had 16 top ten singles in the US, with four reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music and charity.

 "HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAIN?" IS A SONG WRITTEN BY John Fogerty and released as a single in 1971 from the album Pendulum (1970) by roots rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song charted highest in Canada, reaching number one on the RPM 100 national album chart in March 1971. In the U.S., it peaked at number eight on the Billboard  Hot 100 singles chart in the same year. On Cash Box pop chart, it peaked at number three. Billboard co-listed the b-side "Hey Tonight". In the UK, it reached number 36. It was the group's eighth gold-selling single.

   Some have speculated that the song's lyrics are referencing the Vietnam War, with the "rain" being a metaphor for bombs falling from the sky. In his review for Allmusic website, Mark Deming suggests that the song is about the idealism of the 1960s and about how it faded in the wake of events such as the Altamont Free Concert and the Kent State shootings, and that Fogerty is saying that the same issues of the 1960s still existed in the 1970s but that people were no longer fighting for them. However, Fogerty himself has said in interviews and prior to playing the song in concert that it is about rising tension within CCR and the imminent departure of his brother Tom from the band. In an interview, Fogerty stated that the song was written about the fact that they were on the top of the charts, and had surpassed all of their wildest expectations of fame and fortune. They were rich and famous, but somehow all of the members of the band at the time were depressed and unhappy; thus the line "Have you ever seen the rain, coming down on a sunny day?". The band split up in October the following year after the release of the álbum Mardi Gras.

 In a literal sense the song describes a sunshower such in the lyric "It'll rain a sunny day" and the chorus "have you ever seen the rain Comin' down on a sunny day?". These events are particularly common in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but less common in other parts of the country, due to localized atmospheric wind shear effects. In Southern regional dialect, there is even a term for it: "the devil beating his wife".

   John Fogerty released a live version of the song on his The Long Road Home - In Concert DVD which was recorded at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on September 15, 2005.

Someone told me long ago

There's a calm before the storm

I know

It's been coming for some time

When it's over, so they say

It'll rain a sunny day

I know

Shinin' down like water

I wanna know

Have you ever seen the rain?

I wanna know

Have you ever seen the rain

Comin' down on a sunny day?

Yesterday and days before

Sun is cold and rain is hot

I know

Been that way for all my time

'Til forever, on it goes

Through the circle, fast and slow

I know

It can't stop, I wonder

I wanna know

Have you ever seen the rain?

I wanna know

Have you ever seen the rain

Comin' down on a sunny day?

Yeah!

I wanna know

Have you ever seen the rain?

I wanna know

Have you ever seen the rain

Comin' down on a sunny day?