It’s raining today, but once there was summer and you

It actu­ally is rain­ing today, a seri­ous, soak­ing rain, the first in prob­ably 5 months.  And there’s always a song to go with these moments — and this one is perhaps one of my abso­lute favor­ites of its genre.  This is a clas­sic impres­sion­istic love song , a story in a song, writ­ten the way songs always should be, putting the kibosh on vari­ety and its status as the spice of life.  This song can be sung over and over and it never gets old, but you can’t listen to it every day, just on days like this.

• play: Scott Walker — It’s Raining Today

It’s rain­ing today
and I’m just about to forget the train window girl
That wonder­ful day we met
She smiles through the smoke from my cigarette

It’s rain­ing today
But once there was summer and you
And dark little rooms
And sleep in late after­noons
Those moments descend on my windowpane

I’ve hung around here too long
Listenin’ to the old landlady’s hard-luck stor­ies
You out of me me out of you
We go like lovers
To replace the empty space
Repeat our dreams to someone new

It’s rain­ing today
And I watch the cello­phane streets
No hang-ups for me
’Cause hang-ups need company
The street corner girl’s a cold trem­bling leaf
It’s rain­ing today
It’s rain­ing today