Rain

"Rain" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 30 May 1966 as the B-side of their "Paperback Writer" single. Both songs were recorded during the sessions for Revolver, although neither appear on that album. "Rain" was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. He described its meaning as "about people moaning about the weather all the time". The song's recording contains a slowed-down rhythm track, a droning bass line and backwards vocals. Its release marked the first time that reversed sounds appeared in a pop song, although the Beatles used the same technique on the Revolver track "Tomorrow Never Knows", recorded days earlier. Ringo Starr considers "Rain" his best recorded drum performance. Three promotional films were created for the song, and they are considered among the early precursors of music videos. Background and inspiration Commenting on "Rain", Lennon said it addressed "People moaning because ... they don't like the weather". Another interpretation is that the song's "rain" and "sun" are phenomena experienced during a benign LSD trip. Lennon had sung of the importance of mind over matter in the Beatles' 1963 song "There's a Place"; with "Rain", he furthered this idea through the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Author Nicholas Schaffner recognises it as the first Beatles song to portray the material world as an illusion, a theme Lennon and George Harrison explored at length during the band's psychedelic period. In an early-1970s article on the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership, "Rain" was one of the songs Lennon said he wrote alone. According to Paul McCartney's recollection in his 1997 authorised biography Many Years from Now, the pair collaborated on it, and the song's authorship was "70–30 to John". In what Beatles biographer Steve Turner deems an oversimplification that ignores the philosophical aspect, McCartney recalled: "Songs have traditionally treated rain as a bad thing and what we got on to was that it's no bad thing. There's no greater feeling than the rain dripping down your back."