Roll of the Dice: Rainmaker

“[Rainmaker] was sort of the one that stood in for the album I didn’t make.”  –Bruce Springsteen to Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone, September 20, 2020

I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I think Bruce meant that literally.

Hiatt’s article dates the origin of “Rainmaker” to “a few years before Trump took office,” but Brucebase reports that it was first demoed in November 2003.

I lean more toward Brucebase’s assessment than Hiatt’s, and what’s more: I’m not convinced that the official track itself doesn’t date back more than a decade. Bruce’s vocals sound very Magic-era, as does the production and lyrical theme.

There’s no evidence of “Rainmaker” being recorded during the Letter to You sessions captured on Bruce’s 2020 documentary film, and Toby Scott’s credited involvement suggests that at least part of the track dates back prior to the 2019 E Street Band recording sessions.

I have a strong suspicion that “Rainmaker”–not just the song, but much if not most of the actual track–is actually a bona fide Magic outtake.

Which raises the question: why include it on Letter to You at all?

“Rainmaker” isn’t the oldest track on its album by far, but at least “If I Was the Priest,” “Janey Needs a Shooter,” and “Song for Orphans” fit the album’s theme of looking back over a long musical career. Even “One Minute You’re Here,” which also likely dates back much further than the Letter to You sessions, fits the album’s theme.

“Rainmaker,” though, sticks out like a sore thumb. In sound, style and theme, it’s like nothing else on Letter to You, and whenever I listen to the album, this track jolts me out of my reverie only to return me to it immediately after.

“Rainmaker” is (in my humble opinion), the uncontested best track on Letter to You, but in context of the album it has no business even being there.

So again: why?

To answer that, we must first take a deep listen to the song. Let’s do it together.

The rainmaker in “Rainmaker” is metaphor, of course, but it’s a metaphor grounded in real life.

On the surface, “Rainmaker” is the story of Charles Hatfield, an early twentieth century sewing machine salesman turned “moisture accelerator.” Recognizing an opportunity as he travelled through the drought-stricken American West, Hatfield “invented” a 23-chemical cocktail he claimed had the power to attract water.

Hatfield travelled from town to town with his chemical soup and a cauldron in which to boil it. He claimed that the evaporating chemicals drew water from the clouds, and he secured contract after contract from desperate towns on the verge of ruin from lack of water.

More often than not Hatfield got lucky, with rain following shortly after his magic cooking session, or at least soon enough to ward off a townsfolk revolt. (After all, it’s bound to rain eventually.) On too many occasions, though, Hatfield had to flee the scene of the scam, but his hits were frequent enough to earn him a reputation as a genuine rainmaker. Only years later would he come to be widely regarded as a con man.

Historians tend to assign Hatfield’s impressive track record to a simple (if uncanny) ability to forecast the weather and place shrewd bets, but eventually karma caught up with him. In 1915, the city of San Diego wanted to hire him, but the city folks were a bit more skeptical than their rural neighbors. They negotiated a deal with Hatfield such that the rainmaker would only be paid for actual results to the tune of $1,000 per inch of rain.

Hatfield went to work on New Years’ Day 1916, and the rain came just five days later.

And the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. It rained throughout most of January, in fact, flooding rivers, breaking dams, sweeping away homes and bridges and railroads. About 20 people died as a result of the ten billion gallons of water that fell that winter, and naturally the citizens of San Diego held Hatfield responsible.

He’d made the rain, hadn’t he?

Bruce’s rainmaker could easily be Hatfield, so neatly do his lyrics fit the story. But like I wrote earlier, the rainmaker is a metaphor for politicians and civic figures who prey on people’s fear and desperation to fleece them for money and power.

Parched crops dying ‘neath a dead sun
We’ve been praying but no good comes
The dog’s howling, home’s stripped bare
We’ve been worried but now we’re scared

That’s when the rainmaker strikes: when worry turns to fear, and need becomes desperation.

People come for comfort or just to come
Taste the dark sticky potion or hear the drums
Hands raised to Yahweh to bring the rain down
He comes crawling ‘cross the dry fields like a dark shroud

“Rainmaker” features the strongest lyrics on Letter to You, and this second verse is a great example. Bruce nails the political rainmaking phenomenon–a core of need surrounded by a crowd of curiosity. What magic is this that can draw rain from the heavens?

The rainmaker’s arrival is as ominous as the dark clouds of a thunderstorm.

Rainmaker, a little faith for hire
Rainmaker, the house is on fire
Rainmaker, take everything you have
Sometimes folks need to believe in something so bad, so bad, so bad
They’ll hire a rainmaker

The chorus of “Rainmaker” is the secret to the rainmaker’s success: when you have no water, you have no crops and therefore no food or money. When your situation is as dire as a house on fire, that’s when you’re most susceptible to false hope.

Bruce has stated that he originally wrote “Rainmaker” about former U.S. President George W. Bush, but of course the obvious comparison is to Donald Trump, who famously came to power as a populist by validating fears that were already present, instilling ones that weren’t, and promising in true rainmaker fashion that he alone could fix it.

Rainmaker says white’s black and black’s white
Says night’s day and day’s night
Says close your eyes and go to sleep now
I’m in a burning field unloading buckshot into low clouds

Bruce’s third verse reveals the con. We might think it extreme exaggeration to suggest that the rainmaker’s marks can’t distinguish between night and day, but hey: he’s shooting at a cloud and they’re buying that. (And if you can’t believe that anyone would believe you could produce rain with buckshot, a whole lot of people thought you could do it by boiling a kettle of chemicals, so…)

In the fourth verse, Bruce drops all pretense and embraces the political subtext:

Slow moving wagon drawing through a dry town
Painted rainbow, crescent moon and dark clouds
Brother patriot come forth and lay it down
Your blood brother for king and crown
For your rainmaker

Most rainmakers didn’t travel with a sideshow, but politicians sure do. Here Bruce shines a light on the cult of personality that surrounds the political rainmaker, and the Trump comparison couldn’t be any starker. The rainmaker demands  tribute from “patriots” and likens himself to “king and crown.”

It’s the fifth verse that’s the most devastating, however.

They come for the smile, the firm handshake
They come for the raw chance of a fair shake
Some come to make damn sure, my friend
This mean season’s got nothing to do with them

The deeply empathetic first couplet reminds us of “American Land,” earning our sympathy for the rainmaker’s followers who are motivated by trust, hope, and the promise of a chance–just a chance–to lift themselves out of their circumstances.

But the second couplet is the damning one: here, Bruce spotlights the enablers, the ones who support the rainmaker just so that they don’t end up on his bad side. Better to be on the side of power than against it.

In his final verse, Bruce reveals the root cause that opens a people to a rainmaker’s manipulation:

They come ’cause they can’t stand the pain
Of another long hot day of no rain
‘Cause they don’t care or understand
What it really takes for the sky to open up the land

There are no quick fixes for curing a drought, just like there are no easy solutions for the ills that keep a society’s population down.

There are solutions, of course–they just require time, hard work, sacrifice and cooperation. It’s a whole lot easier to just put your trust in the rainmaker and hope.

At the top of the article, I promised to answer why I think Bruce included “Rainmaker” on his latest album, even though it doesn’t seem to fit at all–but by now, you probably already know.

Whether “Rainmaker” dates back to 2003, 2007, 2011, or 2019, it’s a song that’s only grown in relevancy with each passing year. What started as a cautionary warning was by 2019 a five-alarm fire.

I’m guessing that Bruce recognized that by 2019, “Rainmaker” was a now-or-never song. If he waited until Trump lost the election to release it, the song would be irrelevant before anyone ever listened to it; and if Trump won the election, it would be far too late for “Rainmaker” to serve any purpose at all.

Given his outspokenness about the Trump administration, we can imagine how sorely tempted Bruce must have been to make his next album a politically pointed one. In the end, though, he chose a more personal direction for Letter to You.

“[Rainmaker] was sort of the one that stood in for the album I didn’t make,” Bruce said.

What an album that might have been.

Rainmaker
Recorded: 2003-2020
Released: Letter to You (2020)
Never performed 

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