It's Raining, It's Pouring

History & Origin

This recording brings together three traditional rain-themed nursery rhymes into a single lively piece.

"It's Raining, It's Pouring" first appeared in print in 1939, though it was almost certainly in oral circulation well before that. The old man who bumps his head and cannot rise in the morning is a figure of dark comic bathos — the rhyme sits somewhere between a warning and a joke.

"Rain, Rain, Go Away" is considerably older, with versions appearing in the seventeenth century. It has been connected by some scholars to the Spanish Armada of 1588, though the evidence is thin. More likely, it is simply the perennial wish of any child kept indoors on a rainy day.

"Doctor Foster Went to Gloucester" appeared in print in 1844, though versions may be older. The poor doctor, stepping into a puddle right up to his middle, resolves never to visit Gloucester again — a determination that suggests the puddle was very large indeed, or the doctor very easily discouraged. All three rhymes share the same grey English weather, and this recording captures all three with cheerful energy.