10 Driving songs to play in the pouring rain

By Stuart Johnston

Riders on the Storm

The Doors classic from 1971 was  released shortly after the death of lead singer Jim Morrison in July of that year. Morrison’s death was partially responsible for Riders on the Storm  being accorded an instant classic status.  But it also boasts  one of the most distinctive keyboard solo’s in rock music, punctuated by rushing, gushing water effects. Jim Morrison’s haunting vocal delivery and trademark psycho lyrics are as dark and scary as a moonless night. But it’s Ray Manzarek’s keyboards that sooth you into thinking, yeah, everything’s  gonna turn out just fine.

Purple Rain

Whacky, eccentric  Prince was one of the most talented musicians on the planet and it’s a pity his life was cut short too soon in 2016. A great song writer, a great live performer, with a voice like a demented  angel, something that’s not generally  known is that Prince was one of the world’s top lead guitarists too, more than able to hold his own with the likes of Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana.  Purple Rain, his most memorable song, embodied the man’s many gifts, which helped you overlook the weird outfits, hairstyles and trademark sleaze-ball moustache.

Have You Ever Seen the Rain

Aah, Creedence. The band’s main man John Fogerty wrote the lyrics and the music, played one biting  lead guitar and had a blues voice that reeked of cotton fields in Louisiana and the dust bowls of depression-era Oklahoma. Strange then, that Creedence Clearwater Revival actually hailed from The San Francisco Bay area, a region more famous for trippy introspective  psychedelia. Everyone knows the line, howled out by John Fogerty: “I wanna know….have you EVER seen the rain.”

Me and Bobby Mcgee

“With those windscreen wipers slappin’ time and Bobby clappin’ hands, we finally sang out every song that driver knew.” The song is a late 1960s classic by Kris Kristofferson, and the best version of all is sung by Janis Joplin, the wild crazy lady who loved booze and getting high too much. Janis died in 1970 at the age of 27. Another great “car” song she sang goes:  “Lord won’t you buy me  a Mercedes-Benz. My friends all drive Porsches and I must make amends.”

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

This was one of those fun-laden, odd-ball,  country-style songs that made it to the top of the global charts early in 1970 when the rest of the world was rocking to hard-core metal from the likes of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. It’s sung by country artist BJ Thomas, and it was the signature tune of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.  A memorable  line goes:  “And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed, nothing seems to fit”.

I Can See Clearly Now

The version you should go for is by Hothouse Flowers, who have turned this number way around from its first R&B-style  rendition by Johnny Nash, who wrote and recorded it in 1972. I Can See Clearly Now was also the signature  tune of the movie Cool Runnings, as laid down by Jimmy Cliff in 1993.  Hothouse Flowers are Irish, and for a handle on their sound, and their version of this classic song (laid down in 1990) think blues, gospel, rock and a tad of Irish ballad  mashed up to a fine brew. The relevance here is that the song opens with the line: “I can see clearly now, the rain has gone.”

In the early Morning Rain

The Bob Dylan cover of this song is really cool, but then so is the version by the guy who wrote it,  Canadian folk-rocker Gordon Lightfoot. Incidentally,  Bob Dylan rates Lightfoot as the best songwriter he has ever heard, presumably that is, apart from His Bobness!  It’s a poignant  song about lost love and getting soaked while feeling miserable, but then songs about rain are often sad.

Rain (Listen to the Pouring Rain)

“And with every drop of rain, you know  I love you more.” This is a mood-laden song with great atmospherics by one of the world’s greatest flamenco-style guitarists, Jose Feliciano, who had a voce very much along the lines of the great Ray Charles.  A blind Puerto Rican, Feliciano performed in South Africa way back when and did stupendous guitar-riff-laden  versions of classics like “California Dreamin’” (The Mamas and the Pappas) and “Light my Fire”  ( The Doors) .

And It Stoned Me

No, it’s not about getting whacked on weed. It’s a wonderfully anecdotal number about the joys of getting caught in a thunderstorm, and when the sun came out after, jumping into the ocean for a swim. The music and lyrics are by Van Morrison, that eccentric Irish rocker who is still making relevant, critically acclaimed  music today, half a century after he wowed the world with “Brown- Eyed Girl”.

Radar Love

Okay, so where is the driving-in-the-rain relevance? Well, it’s tenuous, but Golden Earing’s lead vocalist Barry Hay does mention something about his hands being “wet on the wheel”. Of course that’s due to the tension he feels in racing  home to his girl “at half past four, shifting gear”, rather than a leak in the windscreen rubber.

Rain or shine, It’s one of the all-time great driving songs,  with screeching vocals, howling lead guitar, a bass line calculated to have you bopping your head until you get double vision and a great mid-song drum solo. The band is from the Netherlands, by the way, and although Radar Love was released way back in 1973 and was their one-and-only huge hit, Golden Earing  are still playing to sell-out crowds in Holland and elsewhere in Europe today.