About The Song
“Walking in the Rain” is a song written by Barry Mann, Phil Spector, and Cynthia Weil. It was originally recorded by the girl group the Ronettes in 1964 who had a charting hit with their version.
The Ronettes were the first to release “Walking in the Rain”. Their single reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1964. The song also reached number three on the R&B Singles Chart in 1965. The single contains sound effects of thunder and lightning, which earned audio engineer Larry Levine a Grammy nomination. Phil Spector produced the record.
Ronnie Spector recorded her vocals for this song in just one take. She recalled to Uncut magazine in 2016: “They (Mann, Weil, Spector) were writing it while we were in London. When I came back, I told them I loved the English rain and fog – we had to stop the tourbus with the Stones to wait for the fog to lift.
When it came to the vocal, I went in the booth, closed my eyes and – boom! I said, “Shall I do it again?’ And they said, ‘No, that was it.’ Back in the ’60s, you hadn’t the technology, so you had to do each song, or vocal, over and over. But this was one take. So it means more to me than just the lyrics.
It was the fact I had my eyes closed, I stepped up to the mic and it just melted out of me.”
In 2004, the Ronettes’ version was ranked at No. 266 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, while being moved down to No. 269 in the 2010 update.