It's Raining Again

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title: "It's Raining Again" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1982-songs", "1982-singles", "supertramp-songs", "songs-about-loneliness", "songs-written-by-rick-davies", "songs-written-by-roger-hodgson", "snep-top-singles-number-one-singles", "music-videos-directed-by-russell-mulcahy", "a&m-records-singles", "songs-based-on-children's-songs"] topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Raining_Again" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox song"]

Field	Value
name	It's Raining Again
cover	Supertramp It's Raining Again single cover.jpg
type	single
artist	Supertramp
album	...Famous Last Words...
B-side	Bonnie
released
length	4:24
label	A&M
writer	Roger Hodgson
producer	Supertramp, Peter Henderson
prev_title	Breakfast in America (live)
prev_year	1981
next_title	My Kind of Lady
next_year	1983
misc	{{External music video
::

| name = It's Raining Again | cover = Supertramp It's Raining Again single cover.jpg | type = single | artist = Supertramp | album = ...Famous Last Words... | B-side = Bonnie | released = | genre =

• Progressive pop
• soft rock | length = 4:24 | label = A&M | writer = Roger Hodgson | producer = Supertramp, Peter Henderson | prev_title = Breakfast in America (live) | prev_year = 1981 | next_title = My Kind of Lady | next_year = 1983 | misc = {{External music video| "It's Raining Again" is a song recorded by the British rock band Supertramp and released as a single from their 1982 album …Famous Last Words… with credits given to Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, although as indicated on the album sleeve, it is a Hodgson composition. The end of the song incorporates the old nursery rhyme "It's Raining, It's Pouring".

Background

Hodgson said: "I wrote "It's Raining Again" on a day when I was feeling sad because I'd lost a friend. I was in England looking outside the window and it was pouring rain and literally, the song came to me. I started playing these chords on this pump organ and I just started singing "It's Raining Again"."

Music video

The music video was directed by Russell Mulcahy and conceptualized by Keith Williams. A man drives a beat-up convertible through a dust storm to a small town cafe to bring a bouquet to his girlfriend, who is a waitress there. A co-worker hands him a Dear John letter. After having his parked car ticketed for heading the wrong way (although, curiously, the car had also been headed the right way, just before that point), he spends a forgettable night at the Pickwick Drive-In movie "Famous Last Words" (reminding viewers about Supertramp's album), seeing himself on the film, watching another couple embrace in the car next to his, and meeting a small child with silver teeth, who points out that his car's left rear wheel is missing.

The next day the man, now on the street outside the cafe without his car, kisses the young girl, leaves the bouquet with her, and with his suitcase boards a bus to downtown Los Angeles. He is greeted by a guitar-playing passenger, then an uninterested cowboy props his long legs onto the seat in front of him, next to a lady putting on lipstick and wearing a white wig that receives a paper airplane thrown by another passenger. Awakened by the driver at the station, the man, now the last passenger still on the bus, finds himself without anything in his pockets, presumably having been robbed, but still with his suitcase. He thumbs down two rednecks in a pickup truck, who find him easy pickings for practical jokes, pitch him onto Hollywood Boulevard, and throw his suitcase onto him. After a short walk, encountering more rough people, the man suffers a back alley beating in which he is stripped to his underwear and robbed of his suitcase. An old lady gives him an orange umbrella just before rain begins to drench the alley. In spite of a sea of black umbrellas, he accidentally runs into his true love, who is under a yellow umbrella, and the two embrace and dance together in the rain. The sea of black umbrellas disappears. This final encounter is what had appeared and now appears at the end of the aforementioned drive-in movie. As the camera pulls back, the couple in the convertible now has two children in the back seat while the song fades out with the children's nursery rhyme "it's raining, it's pouring..."

The five members of Supertramp all appear in the video. At the beginning, John Helliwell is a street musician playing an alto saxophone. Before the first chorus, Dougie Thomson appears as the bus driver (this was the last filmed video where Thomson would appear with his then trademark moustache and beard). Roger Hodgson plays the guitar-playing bus passenger. Lastly, Rick Davies and Bob Siebenberg play the two pickup truck rednecks.

Reception

Cash Box said it is "vintage Supertramp with all of the elements that have made the group’s sound so distinctive" and that it is "bouncy and hook-laden." Billboard called it a "lush midtempo charmer."

The song debuted at No. 31 on 30 October 1982 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the second highest debut on that chart for all of 1982 (exceeded only by "Ebony and Ivory" at No. 29 on 10 April 1982), but it only peaked at No. 11, making it one of the few songs to enter the chart in the Top 40 but not reach the Top 10.

Hodgson rated it as one of the top 10 songs he ever wrote.

Track listings

7-inch vinyl

| headline = Side one

| title1 = It's Raining Again | length1 = 4:25

| headline = Side two

| title1 = Bonnie | length1 = 5:37

Personnel

• Roger Hodgson – lead vocals and backing vocals, piano and glockenspiel
• Rick Davies – synthesizers and melodica
• John Helliwell – baritone saxophone and tenor saxophone
• Dougie Thomson – bass
• Bob Siebenberg – drums

Charts

Weekly charts

::data[format=table] | Chart (1982–1983) | Peak position | |---|---| | Australia (Kent Music Report) | 11 | | Austrian Singles Chart | 7 | | Canada RPM Adult Contemporary | 1 | | Canadian RPM Singles Chart | 4 | | Dutch GfK Charts | 6 | | Dutch Top 40 | 6 | | German Singles Chart | 3 | | Irish Singles Chart | 16 | | Norwegian Singles Chart | 6 | | South Africa | 6 | | Swiss Singles Chart | 2 | | UK Singles Chart | 26 | | US Billboard Hot 100 | 11 | | US Billboard Adult Contemporary | 5 | | US Billboard Mainstream Rock | 7 | | US Cash Box Top 100 | 7 | ::

Year-end charts

::data[format=table]

Chart (1982)	Position
::

Certifications

Notes

References

References

1. (30 October 1982). "Reviews".
2. (30 October 1982). "Top Single Picks".
3. (8 January 1983). "Chartbeat". [[Billboard (magazine).
4. Hodgson, Roger. (20 March 2023). "Supertramp's Roger Hodgson: the 10 best songs I've written". Louder Sound.
5. Kent, David. (1993). "Australian Chart Book 1970–1992". Australian Chart Book.
6. "Supertramp – It's Raining Again – austriancharts.at".
7. (1983-01-15). "Item Display – RPM – Library and Archives Canada".
8. "Top Singles – Volume 37, No. 18, December 18, 1982".
9. "dutchcharts.nl – Supertramp – It's Raining Again".
10. "De Nederlandse Top 40, week 47, 1982".
11. "charts-surfer.de search results".
12. "irishcharts.ie search results".
13. "norwegiancharts.com – Supertramp – It's Raining Again".
14. "South African Charts 1965-1989".
15. "Supertramp – It's Raining Again – hitparade.ch".
16. "The Official Charts Company – Supertramp – It's Raining Again".
17. "allmusic – Supertramp – Billboard singles".
18. "Cash Box Top 100 Singles, January 15, 1983".

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