Rain was written mostly by John Lennon with Paul stating a "70-30 to John". John saying the song was about, "People moaning because ... they don't like the weather" with Paul saying, "Songs have traditionally treated rain as a bad thing and what we got on to was that it’s no bad thing. There’s no greater feeling than the rain dripping down your back."
The first session for Rain took place on April 14, 1966, after work on Paperback Writer was finished. The rhythm track for Rain was recorded at a faster speed with the intention of slowing down the tape for overdubs. Paul later said, “The drums became a giant drum kit. If you slow down a footstep, it becomes a giant’s footstep—it adds a few tons to the weight of the person.” The song was recorded at 50 kilocycles per second.
The group recorded five takes, with John and George’s guitars and Ringo’s drums on track 1, while Paul’s bass was recorded on track 2. Paul then overdubbed a new bass part, wiping his original performance—this was done at the higher 50 kilocycles per second tape speed. At this point, the tape speed was slowed down to 42 kilocycles per second.
John then overdubbed two vocal takes on tracks 3 and 4, with reverb applied to track 4. The final lead vocal was an edit of both takes. You can hear this in the final mix—whenever the lead vocal has reverb, that’s where track 4 was edited in. Artificial double-tracking was then applied to the combined vocal take. On the last available track, the group recorded harmony vocals along with Ringo playing tambourine.
As for how the backwards vocals ended up in the final mix—that’s a whole other story. According to Geoff Emerick, John came up with the idea of the backwards vocal. He recalled, “John marched into the control room, tape in hand, and demanded that we all listen to his ‘incredible’ discovery... So George had me copy the track of John’s singing the last verse (from track three of the four-track tape) onto our two-track machine. I then instructed Phil (McDonald) to turn the copy over so it would play backwards, and we flew it into the multitrack at the proper spot (at the conclusion of track three of the four-track tape). Lennon was thrilled with the result.”
George Martin, on the other hand, gave a different account: “I thought it might be fun to do something extra with John’s voice. So I lifted a bit of his main vocal off the four-track, put it onto another spool, turned it around, and then slid it back and forth until it fitted. John was out at the time, but when he came back, he was amazed… They all thought it was marvelous... I thought that the backwards stuff would help it.”
So, whoever was the mastermind behind the backwards vocal, the effect remains fascinating in the final mix. There is also an account from George Harrison claiming that there are backwards guitars on Rain, but to my ears, there’s nothing that clearly supports that.
With all that done, the song was ready for its final mix.
In retrospective Ringo has stated that Rain is one of his finest drum parts put to record.
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Intro (0:00)
Drums (0:20)
Lip Smacking/Tambourine (3:27)
Bass (6:23)
Dry Vocals (9:32)
John Vocal Track 1 (12:13)
John Vocal Track 2 [Reverb] (14:28)
Backing Vocals (16:43)
Guitars (18:46)
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John Lennon - Lead and Harmony Vocals, Rhythm Guitar (1962 Gretsch 6120)
Paul McCartney - Bass Guitar (1964 Rickenbacker 4001S), Backing Vocals
George Harrison - Lead Guitar (1964 Gibson SG Standard), Backing Vocals
Ringo Starr – Drums (1964 Ludwig Super Classic Black Oyster Pearl), Tambourine
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