Almanac Music: Deconstructing The Beatles’ Song ‘Rain’
US picture sleeve (reverse). (Wikimedia Commons.)
Deconstructing The Beatles’ Song ‘Rain’
In musical terms, if not in a social history sense, The Beatles’ ‘Rain’ (Lennon-McCartney, 1966) is certainly one of the most influential songs of the 1960s, or maybe, the entire rock/pop era, which I view as commencing in the mid-1950s and still going today. This may sound like an extraordinary claim to make, given the song’s relatively obscure position in The Beatles’ canon, being originally released as the B-side of the single headed by the considerably better-known ‘Paperback Writer’. However, ‘Rain’ can be viewed as highly influential and, indeed, trailblazing because of various factors.
1/ Its use of Indian musical elements is importantly innovative, even if some of these elements were apparent in earlier Beatles songs, such as ‘Norwegian Wood’ (Lennon-McCartney, 1965) and ‘If I Needed Someone’ (Harrison, 1965) from the Rubber Soul LP. The specific influence of these Indian aspects in ‘Rain’ include the use of drone, musical floridity of a particularly Eastern kind, and intervals between the notes of the melody in the concluding line of each verse, such as in ‘If the rain comes, if the rain comes’ in the first verse, ‘When the sun shines, when the sun shines’ in the second, ‘I can show you, I can show you’ in the third, and ‘Can you hear me?, can you hear me?’ in the fourth verse. Lennon’s lead vocal line in the chorus, especially the melody sung on the words ‘Rain’ and ‘Shine’ is also particularly Indian-sounding in terms of the intervals between the notes.
The Rolling Stones’ ‘She’s A Rainbow’ (Jagger-Richard, 1967) is one major song that immediately springs to mind which seems, in broad terms, to have been strongly influenced by ‘Rain’. That said, it’s my hypothesis that ‘She’s A Rainbow’ may have been even more influenced by another Indian-flavoured Beatles song, ‘Baby You’re A Rich Man’, which was recorded about week earlier than the Stones’ track, on 11 May 1967 – Mick Jagger was in attendance at the recording of ‘Baby, You’re A Rich Man’ (and sang backing vocals on it), then recorded ‘She’s A Rainbow’ with the Stones on 17-21 May. Listen to ‘Rich Man’ and ‘Rainbow’ side-by-side and they feel almost like musical twins.
2/ The virtuosic bass and drum playing in ‘Rain’, at least in rock ‘n’ roll terms, is highly noteworthy. Up until approximately this time, rock ‘n’ roll bands were generally known for pretty basic playing, but particularly with McCartney’s bass guitar work and Starr’s innovative rock drumming here, one sees the start of a new era in which many rock players showed their musical prowess as opposed to being mere functionaries musically. McCartney had always, from his earliest bass playing, been a melodic and innovative player compared to many others in the pop/rock field, but I can’t help but wonder if, in the time immediately preceding the recording of ‘Rain’, he’d been listening to the intricate bass work of an even younger rock musician, John Entwistle of The Who, on stuff like ‘My Generation’ and ‘Substitute’, both of which were recorded and released months before the Beatles song (which was recorded on the 14 and 16 April 1966, released 30 May 1966 in the USA, 10 June in the UK). I believe that Entwistle’s playing pushed McCartney’s bass guitar work in the case of ‘Rain’ to even greater heights than would have otherwise been the case.
3/ The backwards vocals in the coda of ‘Rain’ – apparent in the lead vocal by Lennon, and the backing vocals by McCartney and Harrison – were a device not used in popular music before this time, but employed by by numerous later artists, as any listener to pop/rock music knows. Also, Wikipedia notes the following: ‘Musicologist Walter Everett cites its closing section as an example of how the Beatles pioneered the “fade-out–fade-in coda”, a device used again by them on “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Helter Skelter”, and by Led Zeppelin on “Thank You”.’
4/ There’s a psychedelic, apparently drug-influenced ‘trippiness’ in the lyrics (as well as the music), which are certainly not only about the weather in literal terms. (Verse 4, Lines 1 and 2, are the best example of this: ‘Can you hear me, that when it rains and shines / It’s just a state of mind?’) This kind of trippiness was not present in pop/rock music, to the best of my knowledge, before the time of the song, but was much a notable feature a bit later in the sixties, in various bands and songs, such as ‘2000 Light Years from Home’ by The Rolling Stones (Jagger-Richard, 1967) and ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane (Slick, 1967) and The Beatles’ own ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ (Lennon-McCartney, 1967). One can even advance much further in time and find the psychedelic trippy quality in songs such as Prince’s ‘Raspberry Beret’ (Prince, 1985).
5/ The prog rock artiness of ‘Rain’ is important. A Google definition of ‘prog rock’ defines it as follows: ‘Progressive rock, or prog rock, is a subgenre of rock music that emphasizes ambitious compositions, experimentation, concept-driven lyrics, and musical virtuosity’ all of which, as shown above, are applicable to ‘Rain’. Without The Beatles, there would certainly have been no prog rock bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis.
6/ Even the film clips made to accompany ‘Rain’ (two in colour, one in black-and-white) were pioneering. Wikipedia states: ‘Authors Mark Hertsgaard and Bob Spitz both recognise the 1966 promos for ‘‘Paperback Writer’’ and ‘‘Rain’’ as the first examples of music videos.’
A notable issue about the black-and-white video clip of ‘Rain’ is that, for me, The Beatles seem to be at the height of their unity at this time in 1966. They really do look like a group, happy and smiling in each others’ company, enjoying what they are doing, and not the barely-together collective of artists they often seemed to be in the not-too-distant future – in their last few albums, The Beatles, Let It Be and Abbey Road, especially.
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Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His sixth book-length poetry collection, Isle Full of Noises, was published in early 2026 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
Kevin
This is an extremely interesting and well-argued piece.
It is interesting that you have focussed on one particular track. While not denying the greatness of the song, I would contend that “Rain” is but one track in that fruitful Beatles-1966 period that was influential. Indeed, the “Rubber Soul” album is arguably more influential than even “Sgt Pepper”, partly due to the quality of the songs, partly due to the Beatles’ instincts for innovation and experimentation.
To me, “Tomorrow Never Knows” (recorded only days before “Rain” but released after it) is easily one of the most influential tracks of the rock/pop era – I have heard major rap artists discuss its importance as a reference point.
Thanks for this, KD. I always enjoy reading and discussing the Beatles. I am currently preparing a list of my 50 favourite Beatles tracks – an epic and difficult task.
Cheers, Smokie. Thanks for your comments.
Basically, I chose ‘Rain’ for the range of ways in which I see it as being influential; of course, The Beatles wrote many influential songs in the mid-sixties period under consideration, but ‘Rain’, to my way of thinking, is just about the complete package in this context.
‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is an interesting choice on your part – it’s very much a one-chord ‘drone’ and I mean this in a musical sense, not negatively, and can see how rap artists would view it as so important.
I can’t pick a favourite – or indeed most influential – Beatles album – it’s just too hard to do, and my choice would change according to the particular mood I was in. The double White Album would have to be high up in any discussion, though, and Rubber Soul certainly marked their musical ‘turning point’.
All the best for your ’50 favourite Beatles tracks’ piece – what a task you’ve set yourself!