I'll Take the Rain
Reveal | 2001
Listen Original Listen Final Mix

Next arrangement

The first post-bill recording I get to take on. I only recently stared listening to the albums after hi-fi. It was a great present to give myself as I hadn’t paid attention to REM for many years after Hi-Fi. It wasn’t hard as they had fallen quite out of favor in the mainstream US compared to their Document through Monster period.

What I got was a treasure trove of great songs. Up has quickly become a top 5 REM album for me, despite having possibly the worst sequencing on any of their albums. More on that later.

I’ll take some time up front to listen to this one and see what I want to do with it. Beside the acoustic strumming full chords, I’m not sure what else I’ll keep here. The live version on their last unplgged should also be good for ideas.

The Song

This song lives or dies by the vocal performance. This is a should-be classic Michael crooner. I have nearly zero personal connection with this song. I mostly like it because my daughter Zoey loves this one from the Unplugged album.

Like the last one, the focus will be on the vocal track here. Except that instead of many many vocals, I’ll be concentrating on a single one.

The song itself is very simple. The singer is finishing a bad relationship. He came to a place where given the choice between staying with a bad lover and walking alone in the rain, he chooses the rain. It perfectly captures that feeling of release when leaving any situation you keep yourself in despinte knowing it is not best. I remember the day I quit my dead-end recording engineering internship at Hinge. I listened to Tom Wait’s “Downtown Train” on my walk back to the train. This song bring me back to the exhiliration of new opportunity that came from moving beyond.