Rinse The Raindrops

Song facts

One of the longest track (just over 10 minutes) ever released by Paul McCartney, “Rinse The Raindrops” is a track from Paul McCartney’s 2001 album “Driving Rain“. 

Recorded 19th February 2001 onto 16-track analogue tape then loaded into Logic Audio for overdubs. Paul played Hofner bass and sang a lead vocal then overdubbed Spanish guitar and further vocals. Abe played Paul’s Ludwig drum kit then overdubbed an accordion. Rusty played Gibson 335 electric guitar then overdubbed ‘strat’ electric guitar. Gabe played Wurlitzer electric piano then overdubbed piano and Hammond organ.

From the liner notes of the album, and from paulmccartney.com

‘Rinse The Raindrops’ – I’ve only ever written a couple of songs where the lyrics came first. ‘All My Loving’ with The Beatles was the first one of those. We were on a tour bus and I didn’t have a guitar or, obviously, a piano with me. So I wrote the words on the bus and finished the song when I found a piano at the gig. This was a similar thing – I was sailing and some words came to me that I wasn’t sure whether they were a poem or a song. I liked them and sort of wrote a rough melody for them in my head. But then we were in the studio one day and I fancied doing something different with the guys. We’d come to the end of my more prepared tunes, so I thought I’d do something crazy with this. I took the two verses, it’s only got two verses, and very hastily wrote a bridge and an instrumental bridge for it. I showed them the bits on an acoustic and then got onto bass and we just jammed the song for half an hour or so. David reckoned I sang the verse about 48 times. Because I was doing just the same lyric, I jus t sang it every way I could think of so that hopefully he could get something out of that. We went home and left him to stay up until four in the morning to work on it. We came in the next day and David said ‘I couldn’t get it down any shorter than this’, he’d collaged together all the bits he liked, and it’s like a ten-minute song. It reminds me of festivals in summer, hippies and bands jamming. There’s a good energy to it. 

Paul McCartney – From “The Driving Rain interview” published on paulmccartney.com, November 2001

“Rinse The Raindrops” was shortened to 5 minutes, as a “single remix” for U.S. jukeboxes only. It then got a “Twin Freaks” treatment in 2005.

Last updated on January 21, 2021

Lyrics