About The Song
“I Wish It Would Rain” had been out less than two weeks when songwriter Roger Penzaben took his life on New Year’s Eve, 1967. The heartache and melancholy Temptation David Ruffin poured into his singing was Penzaben’s story.
In the spring of 1967, Penzaben caught his wife in an affair. Unable to cope with the pain and betrayal, Penzaben dumped his feelings into the lyrics. Producer Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, who had previously teamed on Tempts’ classics EX.
The song opens with a few stately piano chords before Ruffin takes over. Backed only by a tambourine, it’s practically a cappella. Ruffin’s voice drips with so much sorrow that it’s hard to believe just three years prior he had “sunshine on a cloudy day.”
The understated strings and arrangement bear the hallmarks of Motown’s classic Holland-Dozier-Holland productions. It’s hard to believe that in less than a year, Whitfield and the Temps would be on the vanguard of the psychedelic soul movement.
It’s also hard to believe that “Rain” was Ruffin’s next-to-last single as a Temptation. Ruffin’s cocaine addiction and insistence that the group follow Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross’ leads and be renamed “David Ruffin and the Temptations led to his firing in the summer of 1968. When the Temps again cracked the pop Top 10 with “Cloud Nine,” both Ruffin and Whitfield’s traditional arrangements were long gone.
“I Wish It Would Rain” peaked for three weeks in February and March 1968 at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart and at the number-one position on the Billboard R&B singles chart.
Video
Lyrics
“I Wish It Would Rain”
Hmmm
Sunshine, blue skies, please go away.
My girl has found another and gone away.
With her went my future, my life is filled with gloom.
So day after day, I stayed locked up in my room.
I know to you it might sound strange.
But I wish it would rain. (How I wish that it would rain)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’Cause so badly I wanna go outside. (Such a lovely day)
But everyone knows that a man ain’t suppose to cry, listen.
I gotta cry ’cause cryin’ eases the pain, oh yeah.
People this hurt I feel inside, words can never explain.
I just wish it would rain. (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)Oh, let it rain.
Rain, rain, rain (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)
Ooo, baby. Let it rain.
(Let it rain) Oh yeah, let it rain.[Instrumental]
Day in, day out, my tear stained face
Pressed against the window pane.
My eyes search the skies, desperately for rain.
‘Cause raindrops will hide my teardrops.
And no one will ever know.
That I’m cryin’… cryin’ when I go outside.
To the world outside my tears, I refuse to explain.
Oh, I wish it would rain. (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)
Ooo, baby.Let it rain, let it rain.
I need rain to disguise the tears in my eyes.
Oh, let it rain.
Oh, yeah, yeah listen.
I’m a man and I got my pride.
Give me rain or I’m gonna stay inside.
Let it rain.(Let it rain)
(Let it (rain) (rain) (rain) rain, rain)