The Best Songs About London In The Rain

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 101 months ago

Last Updated 20 June 2016

The Best Songs About London In The Rain

It's bucketing outside at lunchtime, you haven't brought an umbrella and you're stuck at your desk with nothing but half a Kit-Kat to keep you company. Cheer yourself up with one of these tunes about London doing what it does best.

A Rainy Night in Soho, The Pogues

No one does black and white, precipitation filled music videos like The Pogues. As Shane McGowan slurs "On a rainy night in Soho the wind was whistling all its charms", we see a blurred Soho through a lens fogged up with rain and booze (often how we see Soho in real life).

The song also prompts some insightful YouTube comments, for instance: "This song makes me want to get drunk and drown in my own tears". Doesn't it just.

I Like London in the Rain, Blossom Dearie

You walk, dripping wet off the street, through a side door down a small alley, descend a staircase and emerge into a club the size of a shoebox, just enough to fit in Blossom Dearie and a well stocked bar. Someone pours you a whisky, Dearie is cooing "London drizzle has its charm" and life is great again.

That's how we feel every time we listen to I Like London in the Rain by Blossom Dearie, that wispy-voiced New York songstress, who adds a touch of  Manhattan glamour to London's precipitation problems. Not just one of the best songs about rainy London, but one of the all time great odes to the capital.

An Arcade from the Warm Rain that Falls, Comet Gain

We're not totally sure what Comet Gain's indie lamentation is about, but it involves rain, Finsbury Park and they're from London — plenty for an inclusion here. An arm swayer of a choon that would sound especially meaningful while getting drenched at an outdoor festival in Finsbury Park.

Battersea Rain Dance, Chris Barber & His Band

It's not hard to imagine this syncopated, brass steeped jaunt as the the intro to some 1970s detective show starring John Nettles. We love how the cymbal crashes sound like someone splashing in puddles. We also love how the foreword to the LP of the same name is written by a guy called Mike Hales.

Doesn't Rain In London

"And if I don't love you, then the Princess of Wales isn't lovely, the south of Spain is never sunny, and it doesn't rain in London anymore." Isaac Hayes doesn't half rub it in with this ballad which is the musical equivalent of the jumper he's wearing in the image above: synthetic, bizarre, and impossible to take your eyes ears off.  

Featured image by Ed. in the Londonist Flickr pool.