Category: default || By jt3y

Yesterday, as I changed my wet socks and shoes for the tenth time, I decided that --- considering the climate around here --- someone in Western Pennsylvania should launch a radio station with a format that was all rain songs, all the time. Maybe I will.

"We're all wet ... this is W-E-T-T, McKeesport, playing continuous soggy favorites." If you think the "Froggy" stations have fun coming up with obnoxious "frog" DJ names, think of the DJ names you could have on an all-rain radio station: Gail Storm. Curt Flood. Maxine Waters. Foggy Bottom. Johnny Rivers. What a lineup!

Imagine the jingles: "This is the WETT spot on your dial." The all-night show would naturally be called "WETT Dreams."

Or maybe not, and my brain is just waterlogged.

Anyway, I know I had enough rain songs stuck in my head yesterday to float a boat. No matter what I did, I kept whistling the bridge to this snappy number:

Just walkin' in the rain
Gettin' soaking wet
Torturing my heart
By trying to forget

That, a quick Google search determined, was recorded by Johnnie "Cr-r-r-r-r-y!" Ray in 1956, and went as high as Number 3.

It could have been worse; I could have had "Rhapsody in the Rain" by Lou Christie --- or as he's usually billed around here, "Pittsburgh's Own Lou Christie," as if there's a fake Lou Christie from Buffalo running around --- stuck in my head. Yes, I know it was popular, and yes, I know he's from Moon Township, but that song is excreable.

Christie, of course, also had a hit with "Lightnin' Strikes" --- another rain song that, like "Rhapsody," has sexual connotations. I guess it's only natural that a guy who grows up in Western Pennsylvania would get turned on by rain. Good grief, we have enough of it.

Now that I think about it, and I shouldn't, how many Pittsburgh natives who move to sunnier climes end up sexually frustrated? ("Doc, you gotta help me. My wife and I can only make love when I turn the sprinklers on outside.")

Speaking of Pittsburgh rain songs, one of the best is "Pennies From Heaven" --- the hard, swingin' version by Jimmy Beaumont & The Skyliners (sorry, "Pittsburgh's Own Jimmy Beaumont & The Skyliners"). It would also be high on my rain day playlist.

How about "Hello, Walls" by Faron Young? ("Tell me, is that a teardrop in the corner of your pane? Now, don't you try and tell me it's just rain.")

Who can forget "Rhythm of the Rain" by the Cascades (went to Number 1 in 1963, if I remember correctly), or "Raindrops" by Dee Clark (Number 2 in 1962)? That's worthy if only for Clark's hiccuping vocal ("It feels like ra-ain-ain-drops falling from my eye-eyes, fa-alling from my uh-eyes").

"Drip, Drop" presents a quandary. Which do I like better? The Drifters' original version has a gritty, authentic sound, but Dion's version is oh-so-cool. And they were both hits. My favorite lyric: "Why don't you mind your own affairs and button your lip, lip, lip --- I know when my girl's gave me the slip, slip, slip."

"Rainy Night in Georgia" by Brook Benton is a good one, too, as is "Stormy Weather" --- either Ella's version, which almost makes your heart hurt, or the Spaniels' beautiful uptempo version, which has the opposite effect.

For Our Fair City, where days of heavy rain invariably flood the appropriately-named Water Street and River Road, "Five Feet High and Risin'" by the late Man in Black is a natural (Number 76 on the pop charts in 1959):

The hives are gone, I've lost my bees,
The chickens are sleepin' in the willow trees,
The cow's in water up past her knees,
It's three feet high and risin'

I'd better knock it off; it's getting pretty deep in here already.

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I'm not the only one obsessed with rain songs. Here's a whole list of 800 songs about rain, including the ones I named, and a bunch I've never heard of.

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Tip of the Tube City hard hat to "Josh Reads the Comics So You Don't Have To," which has another good entry on that much-despised cartoon cat and the dreadful movie he spawned.

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Professor Pittsblog tees off on the mercurial "Save Our City" advertising campaign recently launched by Pittsburgh Brewing Co. Asks "Pittsblog": "Save it from what?"

The campaign didn't do much for me, either.

I can think of one thing that would have "saved the city" about $3 million, plus countless legal bills --- if Pittsburgh Brewing had paid its water and sewerage bills on time, instead of dragging the case through the courts for three years.

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"Wedding World," which has two stores in the Mon-Yough area --- Pleasant Hills and Monroeville --- has just gone toes-up, according to the Associated Press.

The company filed for bankruptcy and closed it doors days after reporters for Johnstown TV station WJAC ("We're Just Auto Crashes") uncovered hundreds of complaints against the chain. Channel 6 also claims that its investigation helped prompt a lawsuit filed this week by state Attorney General Jerry Pappert.

This leaves dozens of women unable to claim the dresses they've paid for, so if you see any brides this weekend wearing their old high school prom gowns, you'll know why.