Don’t rain on our hit parade
★ THE weather can affect our music preferences, according to boffins – with upbeat songs most popular in the sun.
New research from University of Oxford scientists challenges the idea
1
In 1983, It’s Raining Men proved a hit for female US duo The Weather Girls but the song was originally offered to Donna Summer. A born-again Christian, the disco legend rejected it as she felt the lyric “Hallelujah!” was blasphemous.
2
George Harrison wrote Here Comes
The Sun in Eric Clapton’s garden in 1969 after bunking off from a big Beatles meeting. The lyrics refer to his relief at both the end of winter and the temporary break he was enjoying from band business.
3
It inspired the famous Gene Kelly scene in the film of the same name, and Singin’ In The Rain composer Arthur Freed came up with the song in 1929 that success in the music industry is solely down to the quality of the tune.
★ But how much do you know about weatherrelated songs? NADINE LINGE presses play on facts about 10 tracks...
when he saw a man dancing past his shop in Seattle, US, while the rain poured.
4
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head was written for 1969 western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, left,
but it left baffled star Robert Redford asking: “How did the song fit with the film? There was no rain.” When it became a huge hit, he admitted he was wrong.
5
Kate Bush personally asked Canadian actor Donald Sutherland to star in the video for 1985’s Cloudbusting. As he couldn’t get a work permit he did it for free. When he saw Bush smoking a joint he warned it would affect her work – she told him she hadn’t been “straight for nine years”. 6
The band Len had a one-hit wonder with 1999’s Steal My Sunshine. They spent much of the £100,000 video budget on booze, buying so much they broke their hotel’s lift. They worked in the afternoon so they could recover from hangovers in the morning and party at night.
7
When Bill Withers wrote Ain’t No Sunshine in 1971, he was working making bathrooms for planes. When it became a hit and went gold, his employers presented him with a golden toilet seat to mark his new career.
8
Prince originally asked Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks to write lyrics for his
1984 10-minute track
Purple Rain but she found it too “overwhelming”. Some say the song refers to the apocalypse.
9
Scottish band Travis, below,
performed their hit Why Does It Always Rain On Me? at the 1999 Glastonbury Festival. After being sunny for several hours, it began to rain exactly when the first line was sung and stopped at the end of the song.
10
Katrina And The Waves’ hit Walking On Sunshine was written by the band’s guitarist Kimberley Rew but the rest of the group were not keen, with lead singer Katrina Leskanich saying: “It wasn’t really us.” But it became a huge hit and in 2020 Katrina said she reckoned the track would outlive her.