"After the Rain" by Nelson

Song 29:

"After the Rain" by Nelson

Peak: 6

Year: 1990

Year end position: 56

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/3

Chronological Songs by Artist: 2/3

Video?: Yes

Wikipedia?:  No

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.songlyrics.com/nelson/after-the-rain-lyrics/

Today is the last installment of the "After" songs.  I think this little run of songs proves that there are a million different themes for songs, regardless of how you want to lump them together.  I don't feel like there was much overlap between any of the songs in this run.  That's part of what makes the blog fun.  We look into these songs to see if we can find a pattern.  In this case, there doesn't seem to be one.  Don't worry.  We'll get another chance to look for patterns in songs that start with the same word in a little bit when we spend the better part of a month diving into songs that start with the word "Ain't".

But let's get into today's song.  It's "After the Rain" by Nelson.  This is the first of three Nelson songs we will get to in this blog.  I feel kind of bad for Nelson.  They maybe had some of the worst timing in Rock history.  They had three hits off the "After the Rain" album in quick succession  between 1990 and 1991.  I think I've mentioned before that I view the start of the 90s as somewhat of an extension of the 80s, and Nelson, with their hair metal trappings fit right in with that.  Unfortunately for Nelson, Nirvana was just on the horizon.  I think there were several things that contributed to Nelson never hitting the charts again, but the sea change that came with Nirvana certainly was a contributing factor.

I was curious if Nirvana wiped out any other acts like Nelson, so I looked at acts that had 3 hits over 2 years from 1990-1992.  It turns out that Nelson wasn't alone, and weren't even the only hair metal act that had this pattern.  I counted eight acts that had this happen to them.  Nelson and Firehouse were the two hair metal acts that qualified.  There was also a decent number of dance acts that fit this pattern (C & C Music Factory, Cathy Dennis, Stevie B) as well as some early R&B acts (After 7, Hi Five, CeCe Peniston).  I think these acts are interesting, since they technically weren't 80s acts, but they don't fit in so great with the rest of the 90s sound.

This was the second song off the "After the Rain" album, which was wildly successful for Nelson.  After they released this album, they went on a 300 date tour to promote it.  I will give the song credit for consistency.  The lyrics don't seem to be very vague or nuanced.  The "rain" Nelson is referring to is some kind of pain from a bad relationship, and Nelson is there to help the woman in the song through the hurt so that she can "live again".  That's generous of Nelson.  I guess the only question is whether Nelson is doing this because they like the girl or because they are saints that only want the best for her.  The only line that makes me wonder about that is the one where they say "Waiting as my heart beats just for you".  That's really the only time they mention their feelings in the song.  The rest is all about the girl.  I'm guessing this was relatable to girls at the time.  It didn't really connect with me, but I feel like I wasn't the target audience for Nelson.

The video is really what people remember most about this song.  Spin magazine called it the "Worst video of the 90s", which seems kind of harsh.  Then again, as I mentioned above, Nelson lived in a strange nether region of the 90s that was out of step with most of the decade.  Even with that, the video is really quite strange.  I don't know that it is as incomprehensible as "Adult Education" since it does have a story line.  It also has an acting part before you even get to the song, which I challenge anyone to make heads or tails of.  To briefly sum up the video, it seems like there is a kid with a drunk father who is having trouble at home.  He puts on some headphones and Nelson magically teleports him to some kind of sweat lodge, where an Indian gives him a feather and sends him to a Nelson concert.  He then wakes up at home - and the feather is still there!  My main question about this is how this song made his life better.  The song is obviously about a woman, but through the magical powers of Nelson, it can make a boy in an abusive household's life better.  My best guess is that you could (very) loosely interpret "the Rain" to be any hardship.  There's no justification for that in the lyrics of the song, but it's the best I could come up with.

So, this concludes the "After" section of the blog.  I hope you had as much fun as I did.  I'll be back tomorrow with more songs, although we'll have to wait a little longer until we get more prepositional phrases.