RAIN SONGS

It's still raining. I've never seen rain like this--and I've lived in the Pacific Northwest all my life. Rivers are rising. 68 roads are closed for flooding. There are plenty of great rain songs. Here are some rain songs.

The clip above is REM in their golden days, performing "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)." The song was released in May 1984 as the first single from the group's second studio album Reckoning.

The clip below is Dylan performing "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" from the infamous 1966 tour with the Hawks (later called The Band). Rain figures prominently in Dylan's music from Hard Rain to Buckets of Rain, and people are expecting rain or back in the rain. High water is rising, there's a crash on the levee, and we wait for the flood. This song captures that rain-soaked feeling when your gravity fails and negativity won't pull you through.

"When you're lost in the rain in Juarez..."

THE MOON RIVER VARIATIONS

News from outer space. NASA has done it again. This is one of the first visible pictures of a planet circling a distant star, and in honor of the accomplishment we dedicate "Moon River" to Formalhaut B, our new distant cousin in outer space. (Actually, I have other distant cousins in outer space, but that's another story.) Formalhaut B is only twenty five light years away, and we hope it sustains life and we hope that that life is not giant, insectoid, and ravenous.

To planet Formalhaut B: here's a song based on a universal theme (we hope) of love:

Moon River first appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany's, a 1961 film loosely based on a story by Truman Capote. The song was written by Johnny Mercer (words) and Henry Mancini (music). In this clip, an elfin Audrey Hepburn tugs at guitar strings and heartstrings and shows one of myriad distractions a writer must face.

Andy Williams sang the popular version that still plays on easy listening stations. After a couple tumblers of Scotch, Uncle Ed sang it at the wedding. He nearly burst a cummerbund. Don't let that experience sway you. No less a songwriter than Bob Dylan once called this a perfect song.

In this clip from the British television show "The Old Grey Whistle Test," an early REM plays Moon River and then jumps into Pretty Persuasion. Since the new planet is twenty five light years away, 1980s television is finally just getting there. Sorry, Formalhautians. We apologize for that decade. Still, we think you'll enjoy this clip.

RADIO FREE EUROPE

The national television debut of a very young REM, when they were still a squirrelly little outfit from Athens, Georgia, known for an EP, and a great first album, "Murmur." That still is one of my favorites. Here they jump like snakes on a griddle. Yes, everyone had more hair back then. This was twenty five years ago, after all. What did your hair look like in 1983?

SUPERNATURAL SUPERSERIOUS REM

After a string of lackluster albums, REM has released a great one, Accelerate. The band is all fired up, and Peter Buck is playing the hell out of that Rickenbacker. Stipe sings with an urgency missing for decades. Rolling Stone says it's one of the best albums the band has ever made. Yesterday they played Supernatural Superserious on the Today Show. What do you think?