Marmalade: "I See the Rain" (1967)

The only reason I know about this song at all was because Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs covered it in their excellent album "Under the Covers" in 2006. ( Their sequel, recorded in 2009 is worth owning as well.) Hearing it on the radio recently by the original band, "Marmalade" (also known as "The Marmalade") made me think this could have been an iconic example of '60's music, and it is hard to believe this song never charted anywhere. 

Says Dave Gersham in an article on Reselct.com: "...by all appearances, “I See the Rain” was one of two high-water marks for the group. (In fact, according to the writeup on AllMusic.com, Jimi Hendrix declared " I See the Rain" the best British single of 1967, and considering that year was smack dab in the middle of the Beatles’career, not to mention numerous other huge British groups, that’s saying an awful lot.) Truly a lost classic, and while Sweet and Hoffs do an excellent version of the song, they do it even greater justice by simply featuring it as the leadoff song on the album and bringing it to the light of day for today’s listeners."

The band was formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1961 and were known as "The Gaylords" and "Dean Ford and the Gaylords" before changing to "The Marmalade" in 1966. They were extremely popular in Scotland and were the first Scottish band to have a top charting song in the U.K. (a cover of the Beatles "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da").

In the U.S. they will be best known for "Reflections of My Life" (1969) which sounds completely different than "I See the Rain". If you listened to "Wild Thing" and "Love is All Around" by the Troggs, you would never believe it was by the same band either. Coincidently, they had the same manager. "Reflections of My Life" would rise to #10 on the Hot 100 Chart in the U.S.

In 1970 the band had a U.S. Adult Contemporary Chart hit reaching #9 called "Rainbow", a song I heard for the first time one minute ago. All of their productive originals were written by William Campbell/Thomas McAleese.

From then on,they began to have personnel changes and they never really were the same band although they are still touring today.

The Sweet/Hoffs cover of "I See the Rain" is so good I have included their performance on Conan O'Brian in this post.