She took all my money
and my best friend
You know the story
Here it comes again
I have no pride
I have no shame
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain!
Since you're gone
deep inside it hurts
I'm just another sad guest
on this dark earth(1)
I want to believe
in the mercy of the world again(2)
Make it rain, make it rain!
The nite's too quiet
Stretched out alone
I need the whip of thunder
and the wind's dark moan
I'm not Able, I'm just Cain(3)
Open up the heavens
Make it rain!
I'm close to heaven
Crushed at the gate
They sharpen their knives
on my mistakes
What she done, you can't give it a name
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain, yeah!
Without her love
Withour your kiss
Hell can't burn me
more than this
I'm burning up all this pain
Put out the fire
Make it rain!
I'm born to trouble
I'm born to fate
Inside a promise
I can't escape
It's the same old world
But nothing looks the same
Make it rain!
Make it rain!
Got to make it rain
Make it rain
You got to make it rain
Got to make it rain
You got to...
I stand alone here!
I stand alone here!
Sing it:
Make it rain!
Make it rain!
Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen
Waits-Brennan
Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), © 2004
Official release: Real Gone, (P) & © 2004 Anti Inc.
Known covers:
None
Waits performing "Make It Rain" on the Late Show With David Letterman (2004)
CBS TV television talkshow with David Letterman.
Ed Sullivan Theater. New York/ USA (broadcast September 28, 2004)
Notes:
(1) I'm just another sad
guest on this dark earth:
- Notice same phrase being used in Baby
Gonna Leave Me (Real Gone, 2004) ("Well I'm just another sad
guest on this dark earth").
- Could be quoted from Goethe: "Und so lang du das nicht hast,
Dieses: Stirb und werde! Bist du nur ein trüber Gast, Auf der dunklen Erde."
(Trans: And as long as you haven't experienced this, to die and so to
grow. You are only a troubled guest, on this dark earth) From:
"Selige Sehnsucht", 1814.
(2) I want to believe in
the mercy of the world again
- Jonathan Valania (2004): Well, that's why I think if you had to
distill the essence of Real Gone down to one line, it's where you say, "1
want to believe in the mercy of the world again." I think so many people
feel that way right now. TW: "Do you know who said that? Bob Dylan. He
didn't say it in a song; he said it in an interview. He was just talking about
the state of the world, so I threw that in there." (Source:
"Magnet Interview With Tom Waits", by Jonathan Valania. October,
2004)
(3) I'm not Able, I'm
just Cain
- Refering to Abel and Cain: According to Genesis 4: 1-16. 'The Mahometan
tradition of the death of Abel is this: Cain was born with a twin sister who
was named Aclima, and Abel with a twin sister named Jumella. Adam wished Cain
to marry Abel's twin sister, and Abel to marry Cain's. Cain would not consent
to this arrangement, and Adam proposed to refer the question to God by means
of a sacrifice. God rejected Cain's sacrifice to signify his disapproval of
his marriage with Aclima, his twin sister, and Cain slew his brother in a fit
of jealousy. (Source: The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E.
Cobham Brewer).
- Notice earlier references to Cain and Abel: Dirt
In The Ground, 1992 ("Now Cain slew Abel, he killed him with a
stone"), Walk
Away, 1995 ("Dot King was whittled from the bone of Cain")
and Sins Of The Father, 2004
("Written in the book of tubold Cain, A long black overcoat will show
no stain")