The Real Pain of Rodger Penzabene

I was planning to write about Barrett Strong, the lyricist who, along with composer Norman Whitfield, wrote many of the Temptations’ biggest hits. Of all their great songs, which one would I write about? “Just My Imagination”? Fabulous song. “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” was a very strong contender too, a story you can sink your ears into. Then I thought about “I Wish It Would Rain,” a very powerful, very moving song. Only, I learned, Barrett Strong didn’t write the lyric, Rodger Penzabene did (with music by Whitfield). And when I read a little more about the story behind the song, and about Penzabene’s ultimate fate, it was too compelling a tale to hold off on. Barrett Strong would just have to wait his turn on the back burner.

Penzabene had penned the words for an earlier Temptations song, “You’re My Everything.”

You surely must know magic girl
‘Cause you changed my life
It was dull and ordinary
But you made it sunny and bright

Now, I was blessed the day I found you
Gonna build my whole world around you
You’re everything good, girl
And you’re all that matters to me…

This song was inspired by Penzabene’s wife, with whom he was head over heels in love.

Alas, not long after, Penzabene discovered his wife was cheating on him. Terrible for the psyche, but fodder for one of the great modern torch songs.

“I Wish It Would Rain”

Hmmm
Sunshine, blue skies, please go away.
My girl has found another and gone away.
With her went my future, my life is filled with gloom.
So day after day, I stayed locked up in my room.
I know to you it might sound strange.
But I wish it would rain. (How I wish that it would rain)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

‘Cause so badly I wanna go outside. (Such a lovely day)
But everyone knows that a man ain’t suppose to cry, listen.
I gotta cry ’cause cryin’ eases the pain, oh yeah.
People this hurt I feel inside, words can never explain.
I just wish it would rain. (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)

Oh, let it rain.
Rain, rain, rain (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)
Ooo, baby. Let it rain.
(Let it rain) Oh yeah, let it rain.

Day in, day out, my tear stained face
Pressed against the window pane.
My eyes search the skies, desperately for rain.
‘Cause raindrops will hide my teardrops.
And no one will ever know.
That I’m cryin’… cryin’ when I go outside.
To the world outside my tears, I refuse to explain.
Oh, I wish it would rain. (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)
Ooo, baby.

Let it rain, let it rain.
I need rain to disguise the tears in my eyes.
Oh, let it rain.
Oh, yeah, yeah listen.
I’m a man and I got my pride.
Give me rain or I’m gonna stay inside.
Let it rain.

(Let it rain)
(Let it (rain) (rain) (rain) rain, rain)

This is a torch song with a vengeance. The pain is palpable. The prevailing conceit, the weather motif, common enough in popular music (“Stormy Weather” anyone?), is worked out eloquently and consistently, from a simple but powerful beginning: “Sunshine, blue skies, please go away.” The jilted lover doesn’t see stormy weather, he wants stormy weather, so his pain can blend in.

Just the other day I was asking my musical collaborator Lee Feldman, an excellent lyricist in his own right, what qualities he thought made for a great lyric. He said strong visual imagery was the thing he most looks for, the image that can crystallize the sentiment.

Day in, day out, my tear stained face
Pressed against the window pane.
My eyes search the skies, desperately for rain.
‘Cause raindrops will hide my teardrops.
And no one will ever know.

Positively cinematic, no? A man (who “ain’t supposed to cry”), crying at the window, cursing the beautiful day, yearning for an external manifestation of his inner misery in the weather, a kind of cosmic companionship as well as convenient camouflage for his tears.

The record was released in late December of 1967. A week later, on New Year’s Eve, Rodger Penzabene committed suicide.