Luke Bryan – "Rain Is a Good Thing" (2009)

Rain makes corn

Corn makes whiskey

Whiskey makes my baby

Feel a little frisky

Joel Freimark is a self-described "music obsessive" who posts music videos, reviews, and other stuff under the moniker "The Daily Guru."  He's on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, and his own website, www.thedailyguru.net.

Joel Freimark

Many of the songs and artists he posts about are familiar to me.  But many of the songs and artists he posts about are completely unfamiliar to me.

Recently, he wrote about a song called "I Break Mirrors With My Face In The United States," by an experimental hip-hop group from Sacramento called the Death Grips.  

The song's title was so intriguing that I decided I would feature it on 2 or 3 lines.  But then I listened to it.

The Death Grips

I was tempted to feature another Death Grips song titled "You Might Think He Loves You For Your Money But I Know What He Really Loves You For It's Your Brand New Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat."  But after listening to it, I decided that my audience probably wouldn't be wild about it.   

That led me to briefly consider writing about "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," the 1966 Bob Dylan song that obviously inspired the title of that Death Grips song.  But "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is not one of Dylan's better efforts.

Audrey Hepburn wearing a
leopard-skin pillbox hat

And neither is "If Dogs Run Free," a song that an old friend of mine says she and her college friends used to listen to when they ingested LSD, or psilcybin, or whatever other psychedelic drug they could get their hands on.

Here's the first verse of "If Dogs Runs Free," which the readers of Rolling Stone chose as the sixth-worst Bob Dylan song ever:

If dogs run free, then why not we

Across the swooping plain?

My ears hear a symphony

Of two mules, trains and rain

The best is always yet to come

That's what they explain to me

Just do your thing, you'll be king

If dogs run free  

(Believe me, boys and girls, the other two verses are just as bad.)

By this time, it was getting late and I needed to pick a damn song already.  Then I remembered something that happened on day one of this year's NCAA basketball tournament.

Iowa State mascot
Cy the Cardinal

I've set up a "March Madness" bracket for my family and a friend or two.  When #3-seed Iowa State inexplicably lost to #14-seed UAB in one of the very first games of the first day of the tournament, my son Peter – who writes a wildly popular sports blog, and is also a correspondent for an up-and-coming sports website – sent a message to the group in which he essentially threw in the towel:

Iowa State is out already. They're a final four team for me. This year was fun, can't wait for next year! 

One of Peter's sisters taunted her brother thusly:

I only picked Iowa to win one game which means I know way more about sports than Peter

In response to that e-mail, one of my sons-in-law correctly pointed something out:

Iowa and Iowa State are different schools.

(Iowa also qualified for the tournament this year, as did Northern Iowa.)

University of Iowa mascot
Herky the Hawk

That son-in-law – who is a country music fan – went on to paraphrase today's featured song:

Iowa makes corn

Corn makes whiskey

Whiskey makes my baby

Feel a little frisky

One might question whether it shows good judgment for him to talk about my daughter getting drunk and acting "frisky."  But he since he provided me with a sorely-needed song to feature today, I'm not going to complain.

"Rain Is a Good Thing" was a #1 hit for country singer/songwriter Luke Bryan.  (Bryan is on a major hot streak.  He's released eleven singles since "Rain Is a Good Thing," which have included a #4 hit, a #2 hit, and NINE #1 hits.)

Bryan's father was a Georgia peanut farmer, so he grew up thinking of rain as a good thing.

Here's "Rain Is a Good Thing":

Click below to order the song from Amazon: