"They Say It's Gonna Rain" is a song co-written (with George Sanders) and sung by British female artist Kerry Delius. She released the song as a single in 1984 and while it failed to chart, it became an underground club hit. The song achieved a bigger popularity when it was covered by Hazell Dean the following year. A Zulu chant is featured in the intro which is repeated throughout the song.

Hazell Dean version

British

Hi-NRG Hi-NRG (pronounced "high energy") is a genre of uptempo disco or electronic dance music (EDM) that originated during the late 1970s and early 1980s. As a music genre, typified by its fast tempo, staccato hi-hat rhythms (and the four-on-the-flo ...

singer

Hazell Dean Hazell Dean ( Poole; born 27 October 1952) is an English dance-pop singer, who achieved her biggest success in the 1980s as a leading hi-NRG artist. She is best known for the top-ten hits in the United Kingdom "Searchin' (I Gotta Find a Man)", ...

covered the song and released it as a single in September 1985. Having scored two top 10 singles in 1984 with an independent dance label, Dean was offered to sign major label

EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a British multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company EMI in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succes ...

in 1985, and this single marked her first release with them. Dean's version was produced by Stock Aitken & Waterman, with whom Dean had recorded most of her debut album. She changed some parts of the lyrics, most notably, she substituted the line on the chorus "though you can break my heart" with "they say it's gonna rain"; the title of the song not being present on the chorus on Delius' version but was instead ad-libbed over the chorus at the end of the song. The song was also reworked at a faster tempo than the original. Two main mixes were commissioned for the song, the Zulu Mix and the Indian Summer Mix. Dean favored the former, which is the one she used for her live performances. The Zulu Mix of "They Say It's Gonna Rain" was included on Dean's second album, ''

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'', which was released three years after the single, in 1988. In 2012, both mixes, as well as the 7" version and the single's B-side "Can't Get You Out Of My Mind", were included on a reissue of the album. Dean released an updated version with re-recorded vocals and new mixes as a digital single on 14 February 2011.

Music video

The song was Dean's debut video clip for a single. Shot on location in

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, the video depicts Dean reminiscing a love affair in the island while on the way for a TV performance.

Release and reception

Released in October 1985 in the United Kingdom, the single only managed to chart at number 58 on the UK Singles Chart. Internationally, the song fared better, becoming a number-one hit on the South African

Springbok Radio Springbok Radio (spelled ''Springbokradio'' in Afrikaans, ) was a South African nationwide radio station that operated from 1950 to 1985. History SABC's decision in December 1945 to develop a commercial service was constrained by post-war financia ...

chart (eventually attaining the number 11 spot on that country's 1986 year-end chart) and peaking at number 6 in both Norway and Sweden.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Hazell Dean 1984 singles 1984 songs 1985 singles 2011 singles EMI Records singles Hazell Dean songs Number-one singles in South Africa Song recordings produced by Stock Aitken Waterman