In the blues, rain is usually bad news. It means a ruined harvest, a flooded road, a lover who has gone off in the weather. Which makes “Let It Rain” such a charming reversal. Eric Clapton wrote it with Bonnie Bramlett, of the husband-and-wife duo Delaney & Bonnie, for his first solo album in 1970, and its message is the opposite of the usual one. Let it come down, the song says. Let it come all the way down. It’s a record about welcoming something overwhelming rather than sheltering from it, and it stands as one of the first great songs Clapton had a hand in writing. So let’s go out without an umbrella and see what happens.
A New Beginning in Someone Else’s Band
By 1970 Clapton had been through Cream, which imploded, and Blind Faith, which barely got started. He was tired of being the figurehead of a supergroup, and he found himself drawn to the Bramletts, whose band he joined on tour in late 1969. For a man used to being treated as a deity, it was a great relief to be one of the boys. Delaney Bramlett produced Clapton’s solo debut, and the Bramletts’ musicians, including the keyboard player Bobby Whitlock, the bassist Carl Radle and the drummer Jim Gordon, played on it. That rhythm section would soon become the backbone of Derek and the Dominos.
You can hear the change in the music. The record has a warmer, looser, more American sound than anything Clapton had made before, full of gospel-tinted harmonies and unhurried grooves. “Let It Rain” is the centrepiece. It runs a little over five minutes, and the Bramletts, who had helped him write it, gave it a spirit he hadn’t yet had on record. They had shown him that a song could be a communal thing, not just a vehicle for a solo, and the difference is audible in every bar. It sounds like people having a good time in a room together.
The album did well, too, reaching number thirteen in America and lingering on the chart for the best part of thirty weeks. That was a satisfying result for a man who had spent the previous year or so trying to decide what to do next. It also meant that the record stayed in people’s houses long enough for the Bramletts’ influence to seep into everything he did afterwards. Within months he would make “Layla” with the same rhythm section, and you can hear the seeds of that sound growing here: the interlocking guitars, the thick, warm organ, the sense of a band that had found its feet. It was a modest beginning, and a very good one.
A Song That Began as Something Else
One quirk of its history is that “Let It Rain” was originally recorded with different words, under the title “She Rides”. An alternate version of that earlier take turned up on the expanded reissue of the album, where you can hear how the song’s skeleton was already in place before the lyric changed. It’s a good reminder that songs aren’t born whole. They get worn into shape, like pebbles in a stream, and sometimes the words arrive last. A melody can wait years for the right sentence, and then one afternoon the two meet and everyone wonders why it took so long.
The final lyric is built on a lovely paradox. Rain, for once, isn’t misery. It’s a gift. The narrator has discovered what he calls a secret: that he lacks nothing, and that if he gives his love away, it will be returned. That’s an unusually generous philosophy for a rock song, and it’s delivered with real warmth. Clapton’s voice, which he later felt sounded too young and high on that album, comes across as open and a little shy, with a sweetness that suits the words perfectly. Sometimes the voice a singer dislikes is exactly the one a song needs.
The Sound of a Long-Delayed Single
It’s a curious fact that the song wasn’t released as a single until 1972, two years after the album. By then “Layla” had finally become a hit, belatedly, and the record company went looking through Clapton’s back catalogue for something to cash in on. “Let It Rain” got its turn, and reached number forty-eight on the American chart. That’s not a spectacular placing, but it was enough to get the song onto the radio, and to introduce a new generation to the original record. Some of the best music has to wait in line, and this was one of those cases.
Listeners have been drawn to it ever since for the interplay between voice and guitar. Clapton’s playing is fluid and singing, and there’s a real sense of the band breathing together. The record has the slightly ragged glory of a group playing live in a room, and you can almost hear the floorboards. It’s the kind of recording that wouldn’t survive being polished. It’s also on the same album as “After Midnight”, which tells you how much good material that first solo record contained, and how quickly Clapton had found a voice entirely his own.
Why Rain, of All Things?
I’ve often wondered why the Bramletts and Clapton chose rain as their image. I suspect it’s because rain is the one force that no one controls. You can plan for it, shelter from it, curse it, but you can’t stop it. A person who says let it rain is accepting that some things are bigger than us. In a love song, that’s a lovely idea. Love, like weather, can’t be negotiated with. All you can do is stand in it and see what grows. There’s something almost religious in that surrender, though the song wears it lightly.
It’s also a rather hopeful thing to sing at the start of a solo career. Clapton was stepping out from the shadow of every band he had ever been in, and he was saying, in effect, bring it on. I find that moving. The song isn’t a confident one so much as a willing one. It’s the sound of somebody who has decided to stop hiding indoors, and to take whatever the sky has to offer. That’s a good attitude for a record, and a better one for a life.
The Last Word
So what does “Let It Rain” mean? It means that love, offered freely, comes back to you, and that the right response to an overwhelming feeling is to stand still and let it fall. It’s a song about trust and about generosity, and it marks the point at which Clapton began to emerge as a writer in his own right. The Bramletts’ fingerprints are all over it, in the best possible way. It’s a warm, easy-going record with a deeply serious heart. Next time the sky turns grey, you could do a great deal worse than put it on and open a window, and then simply stand there for five minutes and let the whole thing wash over you.