Let It Rain

Album: Waitin' In The Country (2007)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Tommy Lee James has a tendency to write darkly. Jason Michael Carroll has that same tendency. So when the two of them got together one day and began to write, what came out of that session was an emotionally charged song like nothing either of them had been part of in the past.
    Jason told us about the session that day: "I was writing with Tommy Lee James and Terry McBride. And Tommy Lee and I were sitting in the studio waiting for Terry to show up – he was a little bit late that morning. So I was just setting my computer up, and Tommy had set his computer up on top of his keyboard. And he said, 'I'm just gonna check my e-mail while we're waiting on Terry.' I said, 'Okay.' And he started playing… he was checking his e-mail, and he was reading his e-mail, but then he stopped reading aloud and he just kind of played this little melody back and forth as he was checking his e-mail. And I said, 'Dude, what are you playing?' He said, 'I don't know.' I said, 'No, it was something like this,' and I kind of hummed back what he did. So he kept playing that, and by the time Terry McBride showed up, Tommy and I had the first verse written. And we decided to go with 'Let It Rain,' which is a very cool song to me.
    It's emotional. I love to pour emotion into a song. Especially, it's easier to do in a dark one. I've got a song about my ex-wife leaving me that I've not really played for a lot of crowds, but it's got a pretty dark ending on that one. As a matter of fact, I've never played it for a crowd in general. I've played it for a very few friends of mine. But yeah, 'Let It Rain' really came together nicely. It was just the way the emotions poured out in it. I mean, you can feel that song when you listen to it. We get a lot of requests for that song to this day, and unfortunately it's one of the hardest songs to sing, so if we're at the end of a run, like after Day 4 or 5 of a 5-day run, sometimes I can't do it, because that falsetto part." (laughs) (check out our interview with Jason Michael Carroll)

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Amy Lee of Evanescence

Amy Lee of EvanescenceSongwriter Interviews

The Evanescence frontwoman on the songs that have shifted meaning and her foray into kids' music.

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou HarrisSongwriter Interviews

She thinks of herself as a "song interpreter," but back in the '80s another country star convinced Emmylou to take a crack at songwriting.

David Gray

David GraySongwriter Interviews

David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.

Dino Cazares of Fear Factory

Dino Cazares of Fear FactorySongwriter Interviews

The guitarist/songwriter explains how he came up with his signature sound, and deconstructs some classic Fear Factory songs.

Stan Ridgway

Stan RidgwaySongwriter Interviews

Go beyond the Wall of Voodoo with this cinematic songwriter.

Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty

Rob Thomas of Matchbox TwentySongwriter Interviews

Rob Thomas on his Social Distance Sessions, co-starring with a camel, and his friendship with Carlos Santana.