when this song came out in the spring of 1966, nothing like it had ever been heard on commercial radio (or anywhere else)... it blew my 11 year old mind!
We’ve just learned from the new Rebolver release that this song was actually recorded at a faster pace and played back slower resulting in a richer instrumental quality. It makes Ringo and Pauls’ playing even more impressive!
A titanic sounding record. Me and my early-teens friends were absolutely staggered when we heard this. This is the whole package. Ringo and Paul are both exploding on this track. The singing is so good it defies superlatives. And the guitar playing is sheer sonic wonder. Really great all way round. Love the reactions. I think you're becoming a fan. These guys are hard to resist.
When the 45 landed, which included Rain on Side B and Paperback Writer on Side A it was scooped and played to its natural death. My neighbor, Mike L., had a copy, and when his folks were at work, he and I would use fireplace shovel as guitar, and butter knives as drums, and would jam along with both sides, getting it out of our systems early. It was '66 and things were getting groovy. My class picture that year of my sixth grade found me donning a Beatles hairstyle and turtleneck/blazer combo coolness in emergence. It was Fern Hill in Carolina, and I felt prince of the apple towns. Good mems. Tx broseph!
He's not speaking literally, he's speaking metaphorically. The 'raining' and 'shining' are just a state of mind. The scene he's describing is not a physical but a psychological one, something he was to develop later with songs like Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am The Walrus.
'Rain' is actually quite an overlooked song in their catalog. You learn to appreciate it more after a while though. I prefer 'Rain' over the flip-side 'Paperback Writer', but both songs are great.
When I was at music uni in London in 2012, we had what was called Live Performance Workshop (LPW) every Thursday during term time. And among the songs for these workshops was Rain. 🙂🙂 It's one of my favourite Beatle tunes. I think this was probably the one of the first Beatle songs to have backward vocals in there ("sdaeh rieht edih dna nur yeht ,semoc niar eht fI").
Spot on mate! Lennon said he wrote this because he was sick of everyone moaning about the weather. You’ve picked up on the elements that people love about the song, namely the drum and bass. This was the FIRST use of a backwards track and it sounds like a blueprint for the Oasis sound 👍
There's a whole video called "The Radical Innovations of the Perfect Beatles Song" that goes more in-depth about the recording of this song and it's accomplishments. Basically, the instrumental of this song, excluding the bass, which was overdubbed, was recorded in the key of A# and then slowed to G, and the vocals were recorded in a lower key (not sure which) and sped up to G. They also used a different technique for recording the bass on this song and Paperback Writer. Instead of recording the bass using a microphone, they rewired a speaker to work as the microphone to capture the bass more prominently. If you listen to any Beatles song before 1966, the bass sound doesn't really stand out too much compared to 1966 and later. The Super Deluxe edition of Revolver includes the instrumental of this song at it's original speed, and slowed down with a different take of John's vocals, both having a count-in at the start. It's important to note that in the version with the actual speed, the bass isn't actually being played that fast, since it was overdubbed after the slowdown. Glad to see you enjoyed this!
That guitar is autoharp like and what does it do ? It captures a windy type of rain that comes at you in sheets and gets you splashed because umbrellas can’t keep it all out
Probably it's my iMac but I hear bass and drums are so strong here and they're so annoying, but again probably it's my iMac's sound... IMHO, what they did and remixed in '66 was absolutely right for that times and it wouldn't have to be remixed again now... This is just a new interpretation!
I'm pretty sure it's intentional. IIRC this was the 45 B side of Paperback Writer and the bass and drums was pronounced back then. It drew my attention right away and is still my favorite Beatles song.
At the time most people listened thru 2" and 3" speakers (car and home). The bass was pushed up in the mix so it came across over the AM radio speakers. Listening to this at home the drums sound a bit buried.
@@jeffmartin1026 The bass guitar issue came from John Lennon. John had been talking to engineer Geoff Emerick about how American records have a much fuller bass sound than records in England. The reason the bass wasn't as heavy with records in England had to do with the stylus (needle) on a record player jumping due to a heavy bass presence. Abbey Road disc cutting engineers came up with a way to have the bass so that the needle woudn't jump. It's called Automatic Transient Overload Control, or ATOC. It was a version of automatic level control for low frequencies. Both Paperback Writer and Rain had ATOC used on the songs.
ALWAYS LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL ALWAYS IF YOU WANT TO HEAR EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE HEARD MAKES NO SENSE TO DO OTHERWISE THIS ISNT TOO FAR FROM THAT BUT IT IS DIFFERENT IN MIX
