Do you know that feeling of thinking about some good memory but being sad about the fact that it won’t ever happen again? A good day in the park when you were a kid where you ran all day and made all sorts of new friends and discovered so much? Your first paycheck from a job you really enjoyed? Asking your crush on a date and getting a yes and then being giddy about it and having a stupid grin all day long? An absolute blast of a vacation with some old friends where you would go out first thing in the mornings and do so much and laugh so hard all day that you just passed out at nights? Getting something outta that competition you worked for months on end for and you just couldn’t believe it because it seemed impossible? Good times, eh? Too bad we won’t get to live any of them ever again.
“Have you ever seen the rain?” by Creedence Clearwater Revival feels exactly like that. Like someone’s reminiscing about some lost old treasure of memories they found in an old carton box they scavenged out of a trailer in their parent’s garage that they didn’t even remember existed and are now sitting on a bed in the trailer as the sun sets and smiling bitterly about all the tiny details they had forgotten through the years.
It was written by John Fogerty and released in the December of 1970, claiming great success as it became the band’s 8th gold-selling single. But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, as the name of the song suggests, and the song was partly about the ongoing turmoil inside the band, as demonstrated by the songwriter’s brother, Tom Fogerty, the band’s then guitarist, departing from the band.
The song’s upbeat enough to keep you on the “good memories” lane but not too poppy with its 116 bpm and C major key. The moment you press play, the guitar and the drums are there to welcome you right away with a warm hug and a dance-inducing beat. The piano follows shortly, adding a bit of funk and dazzle to the song. The vocals feel like the rain to a sun that is the instrumental melody of the guitar and drums, just as the lyrics intend it to; strong, sad but also hopeful. At 0:42 the drums build-up to the chorus and we get an expression of John Fogerty’s vocal prowess. We keep going down memory lane in the second verse, thinking about all the good times and how they’re gone forever till we reach the second chorus at 1:44 where the organ harmonies come to sweep you up and tell you that it’s alright, that despite all the good that’s lost to time, life’s worth living; That you should look down the memory lane fondly but not cling on to it. That there are still new friends and memories to make and to enjoy life to its fullest.
So, till the next review, think about happy memories, and the even happier memories you’ll keep on making.
Have a nice day and night!