Who’ll Stop the Rain — a melodic lament of time and torrents
In January 1970, the song Who’ll Stop the Rain, penned by John Fogerty and originally recorded by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival (“CCR”), was issued as the flip side to the single Travelin’ Band. The double-sided release ascended to No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart — CCR’s highest-charting position on that list.
Walking through this song is like stepping back into a late-1960s world, where the clouds overhead weren’t just weather, but metaphors for unease — politically, socially, personally. Fogerty has said that the inspiration came after playing the rain-soaked Woodstock Music & Art Fair with CCR; watching people huddle in the mud and rain, he returned home and asked himself: Who’ll stop the rain?
The song appears on the album Cosmo’s Factory (released July 1970) and in its leaner form, the single version clocks in at 2:29.
There are layers in this musical moment: on the surface a folk-rock number with ringing acoustic guitar notes and a roots-rock undertone; beneath that, a gentle but firm protest, a reflection on unending troubles — the seemingly endless rain of war, of cultural dislocation, of youthful idealism battered by reality. Many critics read it as a commentary on the Vietnam-era malaise.
And then decades later, in 2013, Fogerty revisits the piece on his collaborative album Wrote a Song for Everyone — this time in duet with Bob Seger. The re-imagining gives the song a fresh glow, reminding us that the rain still falls, the questions remain, yet the voice has matured.
As you listen — or revisit — allow yourself to drift back: the days when music was radio waves through open windows, when going out on the front porch meant letting the humid air of summer settle. That image of rain falling across fields, over crowds, over longing hearts: Who’ll stop the rain? The refrain becomes both a lament and an anthem, a question posed quietly yet charged with emotion.
In that soft but insistent melody, one hears not only the past but perhaps the present too. And in the duet version with Seger — two voices seasoned by years — the rain seems less oppressive, the question more urgent, the hope still present.
So, here’s the invitation: let the chord ring, let the voice carry you, let the rain fall — and ask again, softly, but with all the weight of memory: Who’ll stop the rain?