Is there a Rhythm Of The Rain? An analysis of weather in popular music

Sally Brown, Karen L. Aplin, Katie Jenkins, Sarah Mander, Claire Walsh, Paul D. Williams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Weather is frequently used in music to frame events and emotions, yet quantitative analyses are rare. From a collated base set of 759 weather-related songs, 419 were analysed based on listings from a karaoke database. This article analyses the 20 weather types described, frequency of occurrence, genre, keys, mimicry, lyrics and songwriters. Vocals were the principal means of communicating weather: sunshine was the most common, followed by rain, with weather depictions linked to the emotions of the song. Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the most weather-related songs, partly following their experiences at the time of writing.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)198-204
Number of pages22
JournalWeather
Volume70
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2015

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