The Rain Song

so i was bored one day and was listening to this song, and using some other comments i wrote a small text document about what i thought the song was about. should probably share it since the previous comments helped me understand the song.i was also on drugs when i wrote it so it may seem a bit out there...ha.

The opening of the song is surreal and seems a bit trippy. It has a somber sound, and it makes it seem as if the song is a sad one. But after careful dissection of the lyrics, it is clearly about the ups and downs of love, not the complete loss of love. The season metaphor is present throughout the song, and it is a brilliant metaphor at that. This opening stanza to me symbolizes the beginning of what Plant thought of as true love, which he juxtaposes with spring, and how it grows into warmth. The rain in the spring is not sad, rather a beginning. It is rain which brings the beauty of spring and summer to life. The line "You are the sunlight in my growing - so little warmth I've felt before. It isn't hard to feel me glowing - I watched the fire that grew so low" is about how his love makes him feel...She is the "sunlight" that causes him to grow as a person, and it is a feeling that has never been felt in his life (so little warmth i've felt before). He is so happy with her that he is so outwardly obvious about his happiness (it isn’t hard to feel me glowing), and he watches their love grow from a spark to a fire (i watched the fire that grew so low).

The following stanza to me is far less in depth, as he is now using the summer metaphor to describe how his love is present. He casts away any sadness, and then he gives his dedication to his woman, saying that he wants to look into her through her eyes, and he feels that he is able to do such. He then says "Ain't so hard to recognize - These things are clear to all from time to time." This line to me is him saying that he is convinced that he had found true love, and that every now and again things that someone is absolutely certain about become clear, as his love for his woman has become totally clear to him.

The third stanza is a bit of a retraction, as he is recalling the sadness he used to have. The weird thing about this song is that one single word in this stanza can change the entire meaning of the song. For years i thought the line was "I never though you would ever go," which would insinuate that he had lost his love. Only recently, when i looked at the liner notes of the LP, did i notice the line was "it would ever go," a reference to the winter. The winter to him symbolized loneliness and his lack of love for a woman in his life, and he never thought he would escape the wretches and toil that winter sets upon some people. And from here starts the notion that there will be bumps in a relationship, as noted by "I curse the gloom that set upon us," but throughout all of the gloom he knows that he will still love her.

The final stanza summarizes the song and the idea Plant tried to convey. Love is just like the seasons, and like the winds they will rise and fall...there will be ups and downs. The wonder of devotion to one person, he see the feelings (the torch) that we all must have in a relationship. The term quotient refers to division or in the case of this song, proportion. The mystery is that we need to have a balance of sorrow and jubilation, and that it is inevitable, as undesirable sorrow may be. The final line sums up the song: "Upon us all, a little rain must fall...just a little rain..." The rain of course in this case being the sad times in a relationship.