“Cold Sheets of Rain” was written by Randall Hylton, a songwriter from Willis, in Floyd County, Virginia. Hylton moved to Nashville in 1973 hoping to write country songs; when that came to little, he turned in 1977 to writing for bluegrass bands and set up his own publishing company, Greasy Creek Music. He wrote more than 200 songs, recorded by the Lewis Family, the Bluegrass Cardinals, Doyle Lawson, Larry Sparks, the Osborne Brothers and Mac Wiseman among many others, and Bluegrass Today counts “Cold Sheets of Rain” among his best known. He died in 2001, and in 2022 he was inducted into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
The song is set on a stormy night. The singer sees the lightning flashing and hears the thunder roar, and knows that somewhere on the dark side of town his baby is with a new love when he should be with her. As the cold sheets of rain pour down he can only wonder where she is sleeping, and whether she is safe and warm. She is afraid of storms, and he worries about her still: she needs someone to love her and keep her safe, someone patient and kind.
The Virginia Squires recorded it at Studio 19 in Nashville on 3 October 1984, with Mark Newton on guitar, Sammy Shelor on banjo, Rickie Simpkins on fiddle and mandolin and Ronnie Simpkins on bass, all four singing, and it opened their 1985 Rebel album Mountains & Memories. Rebel later used it on its four-disc set 35 Years of the Best in Bluegrass, 1960–1995 (1996) and to open The Best of the Virginia Squires (1998). Lou Reid, Terry Baucom and Carolina cut it at Doobie Shea Studios in Ferrum, Virginia, for Carolina Moon (Rebel, 1994), with Bobby Hicks on fiddle and Clay Jones on guitar. Jones recorded it again under his own name for Mountain Tradition (Rural Rhythm, 2005), singing lead with Steve Gulley on tenor, Adam Steffey on mandolin and Ron Stewart on banjo, and Bill Emerson and the Sweet Dixie Band included it on their 2007 Rebel album.
