“Rain Please Go Away” is a bluegrass song written by Del McCoury, the Pennsylvania-born singer who became one of the most revered bandleaders in the music. McCoury recorded it with his band the Dixie Pals in the mid-1970s.
Del McCoury was not a prolific songwriter, but the handful of songs he did write tended to suit his bluesy, high-lonesome style especially well, and “Rain Please Go Away” is one of them. Its lyric uses the rain as an image of gloom and heartache, the singer pleading for the weather, and the sorrow, to pass.
The song stayed in McCoury’s repertoire for decades and was later recorded by Alison Krauss and Union Station, a sign of the regard in which McCoury’s own songs were held. It remains one of the better-known originals from his long career.
