Even though in my neck of the woods we got barely a drizzle today, the gray skies and cooler temperatures felt like actual weather in what has been a very dry, sunny, hot year for Los Angeles. So, I spent much of my homespun Saturday listening to a playlist of "rain" songs, perhaps in hopes of invoking the traditions of the rain dance, turning the lightly spitting skies into a full on torrential downpour.
No such luck but I did find out a lot about how rain plays in my iTunes.
As of today, I have 58 songs with rain in the title (including words like rainy, rainbows, raincoat, and raincloud) totaling 4.2 hours worth of listening enjoyment.
The shortest song: at 1:06 minutes, Right Now Real/ 6 Variations of In The Rain by MED/Madlib off of the Stones Throw 101 Mix CD. (There is also the much longer version of this song from The Funky 16 Corners Compilation in this playlist)
The longest song: Love Rain (Suite) by Jill Scott from Experience: Jill Scott 826+ is 12 minutes and 30 seconds long.
The oldest song: Come Rain or Come Shine by Ray Charles was released in 1959. My version comes from Atlantic Soul - 1959 - 1975 (disc 1).
The newest song: Raincoat Song by The Decemberists is from the future. It isn't officially released until October 14th off of Always The Bridesmaid: A Singles Series.
R&b/Soul is a genre in love with rain songs and leads the pack with 18 entries. Country and Reggae both only post 1 song each (Willie Nelson's Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain and Bruce Ruffin's Rain, respectively).
Only Mary J. Blige shows up with two completely different songs about the rain (although I do have several artists with live versions or remixes in the playlist). She has Everyday It Rains and Rainy Dayz, the latter of which includes a guest rhyme by Ja Rule.
I Can Sing a Rainbow by the Dells is the most popular song in the list with 62 spins. No surprise there as it is one of my favorite songs ever.
There are several songs that got listened to for the first time today but only one song got the one star treatment from me and is thus marked for deletion. That would be In The Rain + Ain't No Sunshine by The Black Seeds. It's not a terrible song but it clocks in at 10:39, and is poorly tagged. I have no idea where I got this track or why and at that length, I know it will rarely, if ever get any spins unless I decide to have fun with rain (or perhaps the Sun) in the future.