I Love a Rainy Night
"I Love a Rainy Night" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Eddie Rabbitt. It was released in November 1980 as the second single from his album Horizon. It reached number one on the Hot Country Singles,[3] Billboard Hot 100, and Adult Contemporary Singles[4] charts in early 1981. It was written by Rabbitt, Even Stevens, and David Malloy.
"I Love a Rainy Night"
Song history[edit]
According to music historian Fred Bronson, "I Love a Rainy Night" was 12 years in the making. Rabbitt had a collection of old tapes he kept in the basement of his home. While rummaging through the tapes one day in 1980, he heard a fragment of a song he had recorded one rainy night in the late 1960s.
"It brought back the memory of sitting in a small apartment, staring out the window at one o'clock in the morning, watching the rain come down," wrote Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. "He sang into his tape recorder, 'I love a rainy night, I love a rainy night.'"
Upon rediscovery of the old lyrics, Rabbitt completed the song (with help from frequent songwriting partners Even Stevens and David Malloy) and recorded it.
The result included vivid descriptions of a man's fondness for thunderstorms and the peace it brings him ("I love to hear the thunder/watch the lightnin' when it lights up the sky/you know it makes me feel good") and a renewed sense of hope the storms bring ("Showers wash all my cares away/I wake up to a sunny day").
The song's other distinctive feature is its rhythmic pattern of alternating finger snaps and hand claps, which was included with the help of percussionist Farrell Morris, who, according to The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits, mixed two tracks of each to complete the record.