Passions: Songs for a rainy day - choose a tune to lighten the mood

Choose a tune to lighten the mood

After a month of rain my new passion is streaming songs about it through my headphones to cheer me up as I splash through the ever-increasing puddles eddying around the potholes of the capital’s streets.

It's a topic that has inspired songsmiths since for ever, often shading towards the melancholy with raindrops synonymous with tears and downpours with downfall and it’s no surprise that there’s a high quotient of Scottish artists on my playlist.

1. Purple Rain Prince. Ostensibly about endings and beginnings, possibly doomed love, for me it’s about my friend’s newly home-dyed hair and a lesson learned about taking an …
2. Umbrella, Rihanna.
3. The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly), Missy Elliott, a woman who knows how to dress for wet weather (see video), inspired by the classic I Can't Stand the Rain from Ann Peebles.
4. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, or any of Bob Dylan’s other songs about rain, including Buckets of Rain, Shelter from the Storm or Rainy Day Women, match the mood nicely.
5. Travis Why Does It Always Rain on Me? Is more upbeat, especially if you’re watching a sodden Scotland winning at Hampden - a reminder that rain doesn’t mean you can’t be happy.
6. Which brings us to Only Happy When it Rains, Garbage’s invocation to lean into the mood, relish the rainfall, and enjoy being miserable.
7. Raintown from Deacon Blue has a nice pacy drumbeat to keep you splashing along at a lick on slick city streets.
8. Bless the Weather from John Martyn, is a good accompaniment to the fantasy that maybe a good-looking stranger will snag you with their umbrella - ignore the bit about it going wrong.
9. Rains on Me from Tom Waits is good for day five of a week-long washout, in fact why not go with the whole Rain Dogs album?
10. Waterfront, with the ‘get in get out of the rain’ lyric is Simple Minds’ sound advice. Thank you Jim, don’t mind if we do.
11. Stop the Rain, Dundee’s own Average White Band - that funk drips.
12. Here Comes The Rain Again, The Eurythmics - Aberdeen’s finest, Annie Lennox, knows what she’s singing about.
13. Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Creedence Clearwater Revival, yes we have, but you’re from sunny California so we prefer the gravelly Rod Stewart version, since his dad hailed from Leith and we reckon Scottish rain runs through his veins.

NB Carol King’s It Might as Well Rain Until September – just no.