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Hey Rain (The Innisfail Song)

[ Roud - ; Mudcat 109812 ; Bill Scott]

Dave de Hugard sang Bill Scott’s song Hey Rain in 1986 on his Larrikin album The Magpie in the Wattle. He noted:

Hey Rain was written by Bill Scott, author, songwriter and story teller from Queensland. Bill’s simple and powerful images will strike a chord with anyone who has had any experience of the tropical Queensland wet season.

Gerry Hallom sang Hey Rain in 1997 on his CD On the Periphery.

Danny Spooner sang Hey Rain on his 2007 CD of fairly contemporary Australian songs, Emerging Tradition. A June 2007 live recording with the Australian Chamber Orchestra was released in 2017 on their digital download album Enchanted. Danny Spooner noted on his original recording:

Bill Scott (1923-2005), legendary folklorist, poet, author and general good bloke wrote the words and music for Hey Rain. His song evokes ‘The Wet’ when rivers overtop their banks and can spread for miles across the landscape producing both good and bad effects and results. Bill once told me that the song had come abound when reflecting on the times he’d watched the rain from the verandah of the ‘barracks’ of the Goondi sugar mill in 1947. The song has now truly passed into the oral tradition and is now one of the most popular contemporary Australian songs and rightly deserves that honour.

Jamie McClennan and James Fagan sang Hey Rain in 2015 on their CD The James Brothers.

Lyrics

Danny Spooner sings Hey Rain

Chorus (after each verse):
Hey rain,
rain coming down,
On the cane,
On the roofs of the town.

Rain in my beer and rain in my face
Old Innisfail is a bloody wet place,
Hey rain, hey rain.

Rain in my beer and rain in my grub
And they’ve just fitted anchors to the Gurradunga pub,
Hey rain, hey rain.

I’ve got a Johnson River crocodile livin’ in my ’fridge
And there’s a bloody great tree down on the Jubilee Bridge,
Hey rain, hey rain.

The monsoon sky’s so dark and big,
There’s an old flying fox in a Moreton Bay Fig,
Hey rain, hey rain.

And a bloke from the west nigh died of fright
The river rose thirty five feet last night,
Hey rain, hey rain.

It’s the worst wet season we’ve ever had,
I’d swim down to Tully but it’s just as bloody bad,
Hey rain, hey rain.

Links

See also Hey Rain (The Innisfail Song) in the An Australian Folk Song a Day blog.