About The Song
Ray Price’s “Soft Rain” first appeared as a single in August 1961 on Columbia Records. Written entirely by Price, the track was paired with “Here We Are Again” on the B-side. The release came at a point when Price, already established as one of country music’s most reliable hitmakers, continued to draw from personal themes of love and loss to create material that connected with listeners across the South and beyond.
In the early 1960s, Ray Price maintained a steady presence on the charts after a string of successes that began in the 1950s. Born in Texas in 1926, he had earned the nickname the Cherokee Cowboy and built his sound around a distinctive shuffle rhythm in earlier recordings such as “Crazy Arms” and “Heartaches by the Number.” By 1961 he had released a Greatest Hits collection earlier that year, and “Soft Rain” arrived as another original composition that fit comfortably within his evolving style of heartfelt ballads backed by straightforward country instrumentation.
The single climbed to number three on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart and reached number 115 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its modest pop crossover showed Price’s broadening appeal while the strong country performance confirmed his status among the genre’s top artists of the era. The song’s chart run added to an already impressive list of entries for Price during a decade when he regularly placed multiple titles in the upper ranks each year.
The lyrics of “Soft Rain” center on the moment a relationship ends. Soft rain falls as one partner says goodbye, while thunder and lightning fill the narrator’s heart. What had been a perfect love, described as born in heaven, is suddenly destroyed by human imperfection. The gentle rain becomes teardrops cried by angels, turning a simple weather event into a lasting image of sorrow. Price delivers the verses in his warm baritone with minimal embellishment, letting the words and melody carry the emotional weight.
After its initial single release, “Soft Rain” was included on several subsequent albums. It appeared on the 1965 studio release Burning Memories and on the 1966 Columbia Record Club edition of The Same Old Me. The track also surfaced on the 1967 album Danny Boy. These placements kept the song active in Price’s catalog and allowed fans to discover it alongside other hits from different periods of his career.
Price revisited the song in later years. In 2003 he recorded a new version for the collaborative album Run That by Me One More Time with Willie Nelson. The project featured several of Price’s originals alongside Nelson compositions and brought renewed attention to “Soft Rain” more than four decades after its debut. The song has also been covered by other artists, including Cowboy Copas, further extending its life beyond Price’s own recordings.
“Soft Rain” remains a clear example of Ray Price’s songwriting and vocal approach during one of his most consistent commercial periods. Released when country music was expanding its audience, the track blended traditional themes with a polished delivery that helped define his sound for years to come. Its quiet imagery and direct storytelling continue to illustrate why Price earned a place among the most respected figures in the genre.
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Lyric
Soft rain was falling when you told me goodbye
Thunder and lightning filled my heart inside
The love born in heaven had suddenly died
And the soft rain was teardrops for the angels all cried
If love can be perfect ours must have been
But perfection is always destroyed by men
The rain whispered softly a true love just died
And the soft rain was teardrops for the angels all cried
The rain started falling when you told me goodbye
And lightning came crashing from out of the sky
The sky that was bright blue turned slowly to grey
And the angels cried with me as you walked away
If love can be perfect ours must have been…