And today we have a problem not of the heart, not even an angst twisted issued drawn from the human condition. Our enquirer today, the near meteorologically named Mr Fogerty has a singular concern which is directly of a meteorological nature in itself. To whit – he wants to know “who’ll stop the rain?“. Seems it’s been raining for as long as he can remember, and it’s playing havoc with the vegetable patch he’s planted to get him through the twin terrors of Covid and the looming Brexit trade disaster. We can understand his worry.
A first thought is that he should just sit it out – traditional myth-making holds that rain’ll be done after forty days and forty nights. His brassicas might be ruined but surely the rain’ll eventually stop if you’re just patient. But then we recalled that the question wasn’t when will the rain end – but who’ll stop it. Quite a different thing. Fortunately agony Uncle Mike Nesmith chipped in at that point – he knows someone who can do it, the only problem remaining is will he do it? So the question we throw back at Creedence Clearwater Revival is – did you ever try and stiff the Rainmaker? ‘Cos honestly if you did then we’re not sure there’s any help coming your way anytime soon. That’s contracts for you.
This was actually Creedence’s protest against the war in Vietnam. The message was so well hidden, however, that not only did it pass the “patriotic” radio censors, but its meaning also eluded most people’s comprehension. The “rain” is a reference to bombs, not actual water.
Thanks Steve – although we did know that already. For this feature we sometimes have to forget about subtly and subtexts to get a pair of songs that work!