Songfacts®:

• "Rain On Me" is a collaboration between Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande about persevering through troubles and embracing the pain. The song was inspired by the similar traumas the singers have experienced in the public eye, including the terrorist attack that killed 22 concertgoers outside of Grande's Dangerous concert in Manchester, England.
  
  "I sat with her and we talked about our lives," Gaga told Paper magazine. "It's two women having a conversation about how to keep going and how to be grateful for what you do."
• I'd rather be dry, but at least I'm alive
  Rain on me, rain, rain
  
  The titular rain is symbolic of both the rejuvenating aspects of the singers' tears and the drinking of alcohol. Speaking to Vulture, Gaga explained how rain is a metaphor for how she drinks to numb herself. "I'd rather be dry. I'd rather not be drinking," she said, "but I haven't died yet. I'm still alive. Rain on me. Okay, I'm going to keep on drinking."
• The techno-pop anthem is the second single from Chromatica. Gaga explained to Apple Music's Zane Lowe how heartbreak and painful breakups helped fuel the dance album. She shared, "How can I take something that was extremely painful for me and find the one piece of it that's universally human, and help somebody else."
• Gaga told Zane Lowe that Grande had no idea what to expect when she joined her in the studio. "I think maybe she assumed that it'd be that she came in and I was like, 'Here, just sing this and thank you so much for your time,'" said Gaga, "but instead I asked her what she needed, how she wanted to do things."
  
  The "Bad Romance" star tested Grande by asking her to sing while she performed an interpretive dance in front of her. "She sang, and she started to do things with her voice that was different," recalled Gaga. "And it was the joy of two artists going, 'I see you.'"
• Gaga and Grande wrote the dance-pop banger with Nija Charles, Rami Yacoub, Boys Noize, Burns, and Tchami and Chromatica executive producer BloodPop.
• Burns, BloodPop and Tchami produced the song - the last two helped create Gaga's previous single, "Stupid Love."
• The song debuted at #1 on the Hot 100 to become Gaga's fifth chart-topper and Grande's fourth. All four of Grande's #1s launched at the summit, so she overtook Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber and Drake, each with three #1 debuts, to become the artist with most bows at the top.
• This took Song of the Year, Best Collaboration, and Best Cinematography at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, where Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande performed the song for the first time. Due to coronavirus, the show was done remotely from various locations in New York City; everyone on stage during the performance wore a mask.
• The UK newspaper The Guardian named this their Best Song of 2020. They described it as "a song that didn't just face the heavy weather of 2020, but told it to come and have a go if it thought it was hard enough."
  
• "Rain On Me" won for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the Grammy Awards in 2021.