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Shower and Sunshine

[ Roud - ; trad.]

The Gigspanner Big Band sang Shower and Sunshine as the first song of their 2022 album with Raynor Winn, Saltlines. They noted:

This song is No. 108 in Baring-Gould’s Songs and Ballads of the West—a collection made from the mouths of the people [1891; but not in the 1913 Songs of the West]. His notes say, “Air taken down from Joseph Paddon, Holcombe Burnell, North Devon… The melody is the old English air I Sowed the Seeds of Love… and is interesting as a local variant.” As a song to transport us onto the coast path, it was unmissable.

Lyrics

The Gigspanner Big Band sing Shower and Sunshine

There went a wind over the sea,
And borne on its wings was rain.
A wondrous breath passed over me,
And I steeped all my soul in pain,
I wept, but I wept in vain.

Along with the wind went a sigh,
And shadows fell deep around;
In darkness I lay, with desolate cry,
Despairing I tossed on the ground;
In anguish and fear profound.

The sun in the sky shines clear;
And glittering after rain,
The flowers in brighter tints appear,
A rainbow o’er arches the plain,
I wept—but I wept not in vain.

Thou love at the mightiest gale,
To shatter, to wither and rive.
Thou makest all nature grow fresh and hale,
Thou dost the whole world revive.
I was dead, and am now alive.