Listening to the Rain

The song is set on one rainy night. The singer sits at the window, and the house is as cold as the weather because the woman he loves is gone. The storm outside is not as hard on the window glass as his loss is on him. He imagines her in the arms of someone new, and the thought that it may be true is what hurts. Each verse ends with him still wondering where she is as he listens to the rain.

The Osbornes came back to the song in 1986 for Once More (Sugar Hill), a stripped-down acoustic session at Studio 19 in Nashville. Bobby and Sonny sang it with Paul Brewster, with Blaine Sprouse on fiddle and Jimmy D. Brock on bass. A version recorded by Doc and Merle Watson, with parts added by Sam Bush, Marty Stuart and T. Michael Coleman, came out on Home Sweet Home (Sugar Hill, 1998). Special Consensus recorded it for Strong Enough to Bend (Pinecastle, 1996), and Pam Gadd recorded it for The Long Road (Vanguard, 1997). Ronnie Reno, the bassist on the 1970 session, sang it himself on Portfolio (Shell Point, 2002).