1959 Jane Morgan: The Day The Rains Came

My first exposure to 'The Day The Rains Came' was via some incidental music on 'The Young Ones' back in the early eighties. This helped fix it in my mind that Jane Morgan was some kind of comedienne peddling a comedy song, but on that score I was wide of the mark. Written by Gilbert Bécaud, 'The Day The Rains Came' is very much a mixed metaphor made aural. It opens with a bawdy brass swagger before settling into a languid pace for Morgan to sing predatorily over and such sleaze begs a lyric of seduction and desire. But alas, 'The Day The Rains Came' busies itself with equating the rustle of spring with blossoming love in a po-faced manner that would make even the most shameless Hallmark hack feel queasy. "The day that the rains came down buds were born, love was born. As the young buds will grow, so our young love will grow" - it's all too much for me I'm afraid so it comes as no surprise that I far prefer the B side to this. It's exactly the same song, but as it's sung by Morgan in its native French (and because my French only extends as far as 'bonjour') then I can at least pretend that Jane is enticing me into her den of vice with a wink and a leer.