Aug 182011
I don’t know what the weather’s like in your neck of the woods, but I’m really getting sick of August thunderstorms. Maybe if we engage in a Last Man Standing on songs featuring thunder and lightning (ie, lyrically/thematically and/or including sound effects) we’ll help usher the storm clouds away. I’ve got a Phillies game to attend tonight followed by an all-night drive to Maine, so let’s get this party started with Lou Christie‘s “Lightning Strikes,” or Klaus Nomi‘s wedgie-worthy version, if that floats your boat. Thanks!
There’s that terrible AC/DC song Thunderstruck they use before Nats games. It doesn’t take too long for it to come true, on the other side, that is.
That’s also Cole Hamels’ warm-up theme song before his starts. Funny, I kind of like that song – it’s got so much AC/DC bombast that I’m distracted from noticing the juvenile stuff that usually annoys me to no end.
The Cascades – “Rhythm of the Rain”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQstQST1GiM
It’s getting sunnier already. Keep ’em coming!
With less than an inch of rain in over TWO HUNDRED days and day 18 of TRIPLE DIGIT temps here in Houston, we’ve been playing all the rain songs on the radio but it doesn’t help. So here’s my 2 cents (from the album “Throwing Copper” get it) Lightning Crashes.
In the Who’s Quadrophenia, between “The Rock” and “Love Reign O’er Me”.
We’ll blow the precipitation down your way, pepe!
The Move – “Lightning Never Strikes Twice”
Feels Like Rain – John Hiatt
Doors – “Riders On the Storm”
Lightning Strikes Not Once But Twice – The Clash
I agree with mockarr — I can’t stand that song — especially now that they use it to intro the Nats, who have done nothing to deserve the glorious BS intro that they get before every home game. The first time I heard it at a ballpark was in Anaheim — during the rally monkey, thunderstick championship season of 2002. Those thundersticks sucked, but that team at least lived up to the hype. The copycat Nats were also playing Sweet Caroline for awhile, but that seems to have abated. As another stupid aside, the only Nat currently playing a rock song as his walk up music is the recently acquired Johnny Gomes.
The Shock Of The Lightning — Oasis.
Capt. Beefheart, Glider:
Up in my glider
There’s no shadow beside her
Thundering ‘n’ lightning
Gettin’ pretty frightenin’
I feel like an outsider
Then the sun shows through ‘n’ right on cue
There’s a shadow beside her
Mickey from Rocky (before the Roman numerals)
“You’re gonna eat lightning, and you’re gonna crap thunder!”
Not a song, but pure poetry to my ears.
RIP, Penguin.
Chi Coltrane – “Thunder & Lightning”
http://youtu.be/N63YxKsR5-A
Looks Like Rain – Bob Weir
Isn’t “terrible” and “AC/DC” redundant? 🙂
ELO – “Summer and Lightning”
Tom Verlaine’s “Breaking in my Heart”
starts with:
Thunder. Thunder and lightning
One drop of rain on the back of my hand…
The disco version of “Knock on Wood” has both the words and the sound effects.
Worse than the thunder and lightning, which sent me home from tonight’s game way early, so I can get a few hours sleep before a long night’s drive, is this thread embedding Neil Sedaka’s “I Hear Laughter in the Rain” in my brain. Join me in this hell, won’t you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uec35ppYLIc
The Ronettes – “Walking in the Rain”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OCMwN_Oq_E&feature=related
That song is kind of an unassailable fixture of my youth, but the guy is a consummate robot.
Neil had that Cliff Richard streak in the 70s, and I’ll go to bat for this song which precursed a lot of 80s smoothness. Looks like it was a hit in ’75, so, y’know, groundbreaking in its way.
It’s Raining Men – The Weather Girls.
Black Sabbath, playing the song of the same name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akt3awj_Ah8
“It Never Rains in Southern California” by Albert Hammond. This performance is especially cringe-worthy (note multiple winks to camera operator).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KjF58a6V_s
Call Me Lightning by the Who.
“Here comes that Rainy Day Feeling Again” by The Fortunes.
(Is “rain” accepted or are we looking for thunder and lightening only)
A song I have a soft spot for: “Stormy” by Classic IV
Barry Adamson also sampled it on his instrumental, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlwwcY_e7Gw&playnext=1&list=PL8E6931B357115C05
Johnny Thunder by the Kinks. Ba badda ba ba ba ba. Ba badda ba ba ba ba thunder and lightning.
Beat that.
Last man standing, under an awning for now until this lets up.
If just rain is acceptable, then Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head.
If not, then Night Moves by Bob Seger. “…Woke last night to the sound of thunder…”
Rain songs are dime a dozen. Thanks for bringing the thunder.
exact match “Thunder and Lightning” by Gamma, a SF band in the late 70s who had a couple of cool album covers
http://youtu.be/M8575pguahs
http://991.com/newgallery/Gamma-Gamma-2-516434.jpg
i love both!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPllNzfNGpk
with help from Ronnie Milsap, who liked the Piano Thunder trick so much, he used it on his own hit a few years later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwcKde9PiQk
Bohemian Rhapsody -“Thunderbolts and Lightning very very frightening”
Ha! I can’t believe you people left that one on the table! And that is probably the last example out there, which makes me the winner! LMS LMS!!!
Leo Sayer’s “T(urd)hunder in my heart”
You Love The Thunder
– Jackson Browne
I hate having to say it, hate myself for now having said it, and probably hate the song, but in the late Great48 parlance, Thunder Road, mofos!
I’m instituting a new policy: I will only participate in these threads if I can list a potentially winning entry from Prince, ELO or ZZ Top. Today’s entry is “Poppa” by Prince, which starts out with a mighty thunderclap.
LMS!
“Lightning” from Danny Elfman’s fun solo / missing Oingo Boingo album So-Lo
http://youtu.be/onVRvaTHAY8
“They say lightning never strikes twice in a row
I should know, I’ve been hit three times (or was it four?)
I’m a walking testimony, come here, look at these holes”
LMS? Not a chance, bub.
“Stormy Weather” – Lena Horne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCG3kJtQBKo
Burning Sky – Bad Company (nice sound effects on that one)…
Matthew Sweet – Thunderstorm
Well, I like it.
AC/DC (not redundant with “terrible”) – Hells Bells
“I’m rollin’ thunder, pourin’ rain
I’m comin’ on like a hurricane
My lightening’s flashing across the sky
You’re only young but your gonna die.”
Chris Gaines – Thunder Rolls
hey everybody!
i saw CDM pullin a reverse Rocky yesterday.
he was runnin up the BACK STEPS of the art museum.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Ha, busted! I wasn’t sure who that was honking at me.
It’s true, but then I went around to the front and ran the steps properly.
After that, I went to the butcher shop and continued my Rocky-esqe work out a rigorous meat-beating. So the workout had a happy ending after all.
Oops. Should have read “…and continued my Rocky-esqe work out WITH a rigorous…”
He ask meat-beating. Huh, huh, huh.
Nancy Sinatra – “Lightning’s Girl
http://youtu.be/3mMiL3X8EQw
Jay Ferguson “Thunder Island”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KoqgALsa_I&feature=related
White Lightning – George Jones
Mrs cdm piles on with Lazy Lightning by Bob Weir.
I hope you crapped Thunder afterwards.
I think there may be some lightening in Oingo Boingo lyrics… I’m going to do some searching.
“Blue Thunder” – Galaxy 500.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3snJxvQsPhU
Oingo Boingo “Where Do All My Friends Go” – first lyrics of the song
“I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder…” for shame Mod, for shame!
And another Oingo Boingo: “Dead Man’s Party.” The video is rather comical with their coordinated dance moves. And Danny Elfman somehow is able to make a sleeveless t, baggy pants, suspenders, red hair and eyeliner very sexy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypUpv9xelg
Smokestack Lightning – Howlin’ Wolf
It’s a bi-coastal dogfight!
Paul McCartney – “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”
Lightning Crashes – Live
Lou Christie: “Lightening Strikes.”
You folks are tenacious.
Steely Dan – “Chain Lightning”
Metallica – “Ride the Lightning” aka my wedding song
I did not write that. Someone commandeered my computer.
It’s on the net forever now. There’s no undo in cyberspace. We’re waiting for timely blackmail opportunities.
Kung Fu Fighting – “Those cats were fast as lightning “
Remember Aerosmith without Joe Perry?
“Lightning Strikes” from Rock In A Hard Place.
LMS, thank you very much.
With one trinitarian hand tied behind my back, I say: “Thunder” by Prince:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlAUB6yWIto
LMS!
Shoot, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” I think it is called. “Thunder only happens when it’s raining…” LMS!
I cannot believe the Mod has not posted Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild in this match. “Heavy Metal Thunder”!