Here's That Rainy Day

Last updated
"Here's That Rainy Day"
Song by Dolores Gray
Published1953
Composer Jimmy Van Heusen
Lyricist Johnny Burke

"Here's That Rainy Day" is a popular song with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Johnny Burke that was published in 1953. It was introduced by Dolores Gray in the Broadway musical Carnival in Flanders . [1]

Contents

The musical was based on the award-winning 1935 French film comedy of the same title. Originally, Harold Arlen was going to compose the musical's score, but he bowed out and was replaced by Van Heusen. [2] Veteran film director Preston Sturges was hired to salvage the musical three weeks before its Broadway debut, but the show closed after only six performances. Nonetheless, Dolores Gray won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, a standing record for the shortest running Tony Award–winning role. [3]

Today, the production is primarily remembered for a song Gray performed, "Here's That Rainy Day", which in time became established as a jazz standard. [4] Composer Alec Wilder calls it "a very difficult song, almost demanding its harmony's presence for a singer not to get lost in the complex line. ... It's a very powerful and affecting song. It has great weight and authority and must have been a song written under extremely intense circumstances. In my opinion it is a great illustration of absolute honesty, quite irrespective of its extremely inventive character as a melody." [5]

Frank Sinatra performances

Frank Sinatra recorded the song on March 25, 1959, for the Capitol album No One Cares , arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins. Sinatra also performed it on a Timex-sponsored show titled The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: An Afternoon With Frank Sinatra broadcast on December 13, 1959, and on the Emmy-nominated Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing , broadcast on November 25, 1968. On November 18, 1973, he performed it on his television comeback special, Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra , in a medley with "Last Night When We Were Young" and "Violets for Your Furs". [6] [7] In addition, Sinatra performed the song during three concerts in 1974 at Caesar's Palace in Philadelphia and Saratoga Springs, New York. [8] As jazz critic Ted Gioia notes, "the song was virtually unknown to jazz players during the 1950s, and only Frank Sinatra's intervention put 'Here's That Rainy Day' on the map." [9]

Other notable versions

The song has gone on to become a major jazz standard; it's the most widely covered song of 1953, with more than 700 versions to date. [10] Some other notable recordings of it include the following: [11]

Singer/songwriter Paul Williams performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in ape makeup as part of promotion for his 1973 film Battle for the Planet of the Apes . Show host Johnny Carson said "Here's That Rainy Day" by Frank Sinatra was his favorite song and sang it with Bette Midler on the penultimate episode of the Carson show on May 21, 1992. After Carson's death in 2005, Doc Severinsen, Tommy Newsom, and Ed Shaughnessy performed the song with Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra on Late Show with David Letterman . [12] It is also featured in the 2022 movie Tár . [13]

Notes

  1. ↑ Furia, Philip; Lasser, Michael (12 May 2006). America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley. Taylor & Francis. pp. 239–. ISBN   978-1-135-47199-6.
  2. ↑ Gioia, Ted (2012). The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire. Oxford University Press. p. 142. ISBN   978-0-19-993739-4.
  3. ↑ "Here's That Rainy Day (1953)". JazzStandards.com. Retrieved 2025-11-23.
  4. ↑ Gioia, p. 142.
  5. ↑ Wilder, Alec (1990). American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950. Oxford University Press. pp. 447–48. ISBN   0-19-501445-6.
  6. ↑ Frank Sinatra: "Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back", Warner Reprise Video 38203-2
  7. ↑ "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back". Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved 2012-05-15. Medley: Last night when we were young, violets for your furs, here's that rainy day.
  8. ↑ Ridgeway, John, "The SinatraFile, Part 3", Birmingham, England: John Ridgeway Books, 1980, p. 208.
  9. ↑ Gioia, p. 142.
  10. ↑ "Here's That Rainy Day 1st in 1953". SecondHandSongs.com. Retrieved 2025-11-23.
  11. ↑ This list primarily includes recommendations from Gioia and JazzStandards.com.
  12. ↑ Associated Press. "Letterman Pays Tribute To Johnny Carson", MSNBC, February 1, 2005. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
  13. ↑ "Tár (2022) - Soundtracks - IMDb". IMDb .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.