The primary question around Texas country singer Randall King for the last several years has not been if will he break through on a national stage, but when? The answer could well be 2024, as Warner Music Nashville releases a single to country radio. “I Could Be That Rain” has a classic sound that draws from his ‘90s-country influences, and a weather-beaten lyric that rings true to his Amarillo roots.
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“I just flat out love storms, man, being from West Texas, how open it is, how flat,” he says. “They say you can watch a dog run off for three days out there. And you can watch the thunderheads just rolling in, and it’s beautiful.”
The emotions in “I Could Be That Rain” aren’t nearly as beautiful, though, as they are twisted. The protagonist finds himself shut out by his ex, with no chance to get close to her again. If only he could take the place of a rain shower, he could manage to touch her once more. Morphing into a downpour might be a little sci-fi for country, but the broken heart behind it grounds the story.
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“It’s just so real,” King says. “That’s what country music should be.”
Songwriter Mason Thornley developed the title and concept circa 2021 when he heard Brit-pop artist Labrinth’s 2014 ballad “Jealous” on Spotify. That song goes through a list of people and natural elements that may be sharing space with an ex, leaving the singer frustrated that his love interest is moving on when he cannot.
Thornley focused specifically on the rain in the opening image of “Jealous,” believing that that smaller concept could be built into something much larger. “I always thought that was a whole country song in itself,” he says.
Thornley developed the chorus hook and opening line, “Wish I could be that rain,” and wrote the front half of the chorus, personifying a downpour. As raindrops, he fantasized, he could touch his ex’s skin or sing her a song through the rhythm of raindrops on a tin roof.
He pitched the idea in several writing appointments, but didn’t get any traction. Finally, he got a good reception for his rain song during a writing appointment at the office of his publisher, the aptly named Deluge Music. Artist-writer Brian Fuller, one of Thornley’s frequent writing partners, thought humanizing the rain was a bit of an outlier concept, but he saw that as a positive.
“The wackier or weirder the idea, the more interesting it is to me,” Fuller says. “I like being able to chase hooks like that and just see [what happens]. Sometimes they turn out great. Sometimes they don’t turn out at all. But I really loved it. I mean, it wasn’t anything that I hesitated on at all.”
They finished the back half of the chorus – the first line in that exercise, “Wish I could move some clouds into your sunshine,” might be the song’s best – then moved to the first verse, pitched significantly lower to create some drama in the chorus.
“I like to write those big, overarching choruses a lot of times, if you got a singer in the room who can do it,” Thornley says. “Brian’s got a great voice, and it’s not a problem for him to go up and hit those notes.”
Going low in the verse allowed for introspection. For that first stanza, they used a July shower to make the protagonist nostalgic, recalling the romantic moments the couple experienced in the rain. For the second verse, the singer contemplates how, if he had morphed into rain, he could affect her in ways he could not as a human.
“It’s not that I’m going to text her, or I’m going to go try to see where she’s at, if she’s at a bar that we used to hang out at, or she’s with her friends,” Fuller says. “I’m not going to drive by her house and see if she’s home. If there’d be a unique way to do this, if there’d be a way that I could get back to her and make her think about me, I know that the rain would be the way to do it.”
They didn’t cut a demo immediately, but when Thornley was on vacation months later, Fuller discovered that Parker McCollum was considering outside songs for a project. “I Could Be That Rain” seemed like a potential match to Fuller, so he asked Thornley if they could finish the demo. Thornley worked on it during his downtime, and when he got back to Nashville, Fuller put a vocal on it.
“Rain” didn’t land with McCollum, so Fuller recorded his own version with producer Joey Hyde. When Durango artist manager Scott Gunter was shopping for a producer for developing vocalist Jake Jacobson, Hyde sent that recording among several others to demonstrate his skills. Gunter listened steadily to “Rain” for weeks before he realized that the song might work for King. Indeed, King was instantly attracted to it, though he called Fuller to make sure it was cool.
Once he got a thumbs-up, King and co-producer Jared Conrad recorded it at Nashville’s Soundstage in July 2023, intent on balancing his ‘90s proclivities with 2020s touches. “I wanted it to still be the traditional country sound that I have, but with a little bit of that darker, modern edge,” King says. “I have a Gary Allan/Dierks Bentley influence in me, that’s kind of ‘Smoke Rings in the Dark.’ And that’s what we wanted on this record. I wanted to put some ‘Smoke’ on it.”
The band played it three times at a slightly faster tempo with okay results, but on the fourth go-round, King suggested steel guitarist Justin Schipper take a more prominent role, playing the opening signature lick and handling the instrumental solo.
“Production-wise, we did try to take it a little more sad,” Conrad says. “I mean, just adding a steel guitar to it helps that immediately.”
King also wanted to weave the feel of rain on a tin roof into the sound. Tim Galloway hinted at that with a pulsing rhythm on bouzouki, a tinny-sounding Greek stringed instrument, but King heightened the effect by asking drummer Evan Hutchings to play in tandem with Galloway, tapping the metallic side of the snare.
When King sang the final vocals for the album, Into the Neon, he held “Rain” back until the end, fearful that its range might destroy his voice for the rest of the songs. “This is by far the hardest record I’ve ever sang in my life,” he says. But he handled a couple full run-throughs well, then Conrad changed things up to focus on specific parts of the song.
“We just chopped it up into the sections so I could do all the low verses together and then move into the choruses,” Conrad says. “But I’m assuming he had practiced it a lot, because in the studio, it felt super natural.”
Warner Music Nashville released “Rain” to country radio via PlayMPE on July 10, making it his first single the label has worked nationally to primary stations. King is confident in its potential.
“It’s a song that people can relate to,” he says. “People understand when you’re hurting and missing somebody. You’re hoping that they hurt and miss you, too. That’s as straightforward as it could go.”
