Which musician has mentioned the weather more than any other?
Somewhere at some time, one stupid human folk committed a terrible faux pas that has plagued humanity ever since: they said that talking about the weather was boring.
Weather is such an easy, normal subject to discuss, on account of it being how we literally experience the outside world, that it is always being brought up in casual conversation. But sadly, nowadays, lingering over that perfectly natural conversation is, ironically, a cloud that rains down a persistent implication that the conversation is boring.
It is, in fact, as natural as conversation gets. We became a social species because empathy helps protect the pack. Our survival relied upon people looking out for each other, so we’re always trying to find ways to relate to one another. Shared experiences are a huge part of that, and there’s nothing two people in the same locality are likely to have shared more than the weather.
Beyond the resonance, it is also reflective of atmospheres. By no means am I a spiritual person who believes in moon cycles and astrology, but the link between weather and mood is irrevocable. Good times and sunshine go hand in hand, storms and solemnity are sorely married, and it’s a well-known fact among authorities that the best way to quell riots is for it to rain.
This makes weather a handy tool at any writer’s disposal. But who has leaned on this crutch the most? Which rain-soaked sensation could moonlight at the Met Office?
Songs about weather and revolution
Well, according to a data study from climate scientists at five leading universities, Bob Dylan takes the climatological crown. The original vagabond throws in a reference to weather on 163 of his then-542 released songs. This was back in 2015, so there may be more talk of dark days in Dallas on Rough and Rowdy Ways to add to that.
That figure posts him ahead of The Beatles in second place, with the ‘Rain’ band amassing 48 mentions. The observant among you would’ve noticed a data skew in the offing: it helps if you’ve written a shedload of songs. However, beyond volume, weather really does seem to be a fixation for Dylan. From ‘Hard Rain’ to ‘Shelter from the Storm’, he often uses the idea of the external reflecting the internal.
It simply seems an inherent quirk of his writing to inject the tracks with a universal sense of grandiosity by implying even the gods are on board with what he is saying. Revolution comes with a certain storminess, love unfurling in spring, snow drifts are nostalgic – and that’s a meta flourish that Joan Baez even borrowed when writing about Dylan himself – and fog pertains to mystery. Everything is aligned to the mood of Dylan song and nothing is accidental.
He’s not the only star to have a recurring quirk, either. Nick Cave has an obsession with ornithology. Paul Simon makes his way around America, always mentioning specific geography, like a Kerouacian A-Z. Marc Bolan had a peculiar penchant for talking about Beltane, seemingly without a single care that nobody really knew what it was. David Bowie loved space. The Ramones rattled off references to brains. Leonard Cohen is the meta king of talking about songs within his own songs. And Alex Turner is another weather fiend.
When Neil Young was examining the art of songwriting, one piece of advice that he prised from his study was that you shouldn’t “chase the rabbit”. In other words, you let the songs come to you. But each time a song comes to you, it seems to carry a whiff of the shadow of the last, so recurring traits like Dylan’s weather soon become an inherent style, and then a study by scientists flags it, but hopefully it doesn’t get in Dylan’s head like the unfortunate quip that talking about weather is as boring as it gets.
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