Here's That Rainy Day
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| "Here's That Rainy Day" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Dolores Gray | |
| Published | 1953 |
| Composer | Jimmy Van Heusen |
| Lyricist | Johnny Burke |
"Here's That Rainy Day" is a popular song with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Johnny Burke that was published in 1953. It was introduced by Dolores Gray in the Broadway musical Carnival in Flanders.[1]
The musical was based on the 1935 French film comedy also titled Carnival in Flanders. Originally, Harold Arlen was going to compose the musical's score, but he bowed out and was replaced by Van Heusen.[2] Veteran film director Preston Sturges was hired to salvage the musical three weeks before its Broadway debut, but the show closed after only six performances. Nonetheless, Dolores Gray won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, a standing record for the shortest running Tony Award–winning role.[3]
Today, the production is primarily remembered for a song Gray performed, "Here's That Rainy Day", which in time became established as a jazz standard.[4] Composer Alec Wilder calls it "a very difficult song, almost demanding its harmony's presence for a singer not to get lost in the complex line. ... It's a very powerful and affecting song. It has great weight and authority and must have been a song written under extremely intense circumstances. In my opinion it is a great illustration of absolute honesty, quite irrespective of its extremely inventive character as a melody."[5]
