Red Rain

The fourth single to be taken from Peter’s fifth solo album So, Red Rain was released on 6 July 1987.

“‘Red Rain’ is one of my favourite tracks from that record [‘So’]. It’s a good example of a band playing together with a lot of energy and again, I think from Daniel Lanois’ input, there’s a respect for the moment. So many times in studios you see people desperately trying to get the best possible sound, but they let the moment go because they want to get something right or fixed, or they know that this bit can be improved, but the moment is something instinctively that you feel and if you get that great performance everything else will bow to it. And you can fix a lot of things afterwards. But, if you get the best sound but you don’t get the great performance, you have nothing. And it’s so easy to forget that in the studio.”

Written by Peter Gabriel, the song was produced by Daniel Lanois and Peter and engineered by Kevin Killen and Lanois.

Cover painting and design by Peter Saville Associates, with photography by Trevor Key.

First charted in the UK 11 July 1986, peaked at 46 and stayed in the Top100 for four weeks.

The accompanying video for Red Rain was directed by Matt Mahurin, with cinematography by Bill Pope.

The single was released on various formats in the UK and came with some notable B-sides; a revisit of Walk Through The Fire, which was written for the movie Against All Odds and had been a single back in 1984 and GA-GA, an instrumental version of I Go Swimming. I Go Swimming was the one previously-unreleased track to feature on the album Plays Live, but never released in its studio form. GA-GA went some way towards correcting that.

7″
Red Rain
GA-GA (I Go Swimming instrumental)

12″ / Cassette
Red Rain
GA-GA (I Go Swimming instrumental)
Walk Through The Fire