Videos by American Songwriter
Travis came bounding out of Scotland with an ebullient sound on their 1997 debut album Good Feeling. Even the album title projected warmth and positivity into the world. Alas, the album was well-received but didn’t sell much at all. The quartet of Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne and Neil Primrose changed course somewhat on their 1999 follow-up The Man Who, which featured a more downbeat, contemplative tone and their first massive hit single in “Why Does It Always Rain On Me?”, which absolutely wallowed in mopey melodicism.
As Healy, the band’s chief songwriter and lead singer, explained in an interview this year with NME, many at the time questioned the sudden attitudinal shift in the band’s music. “The Man Who was definitely where we were told it the album would be career suicide.,” he said. “We thought we were heading back to Glasgow on a one-way ticket to the dole. Everyone was very depressed, especially when the reviews came out for it. It just came to a Spinal Tap moment where you’re sat in the living room going, ‘Aww it’s going to be great but it’s utter shit’. But it soared. It was accessible and it took people by surprise.”
“Why Does It Always Rain On Me?” proved this accessibility. With sorrowful cello sawing away in the background of a mid-tempo, strummy lope, Healy’s tune rises from resigned desolation in the verses to a soaring angst in the refrains. Right from the beginning of the song, the narrator warns us that his heartsick mood makes him feel out of place with all of the well-wishers around: “I can’t sleep at night/ Everybody’s saying everything’s alright.”
Healy’s next couplet expertly displays the pessimistic outlook of his protagonist: “Still I can’t close my eyes/ I’m seeing a tunnel at the end of all these lights.” “Sunny days, where have you gone?” he asks, before admitting that the clouds are probably what he can expect from this point: “I get the strangest feeling you belong.”
The trick that Travis pulls off in the song is not an easy one. With that title refrain, it easily could have veered off into a territory where the sadness was self-indulgent. But the buoyant nature of the tune and the rhythm keeps that possibility at bay. So do the personal details that leave one wondering what exactly is in this guy’s past: “Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?”
His personal malaise is further detailed in the second verse. “I can’t stand myself/ I’m being held up by invisible men,” he complains, hinting at a depression that isn’t temporary. He also wonders if there is something better beyond his measly existence: “Still life on a shelf when/ I got my mind on something else.”
“Even when the sun is shining/ I can’t avoid the lightning,” Healy sings in the chorus, admitting that there is no escape. Travis, meanwhile, enjoyed great benefits from this sorrowful lament. Their performance of the song at the 1999 Glastonbury Festival, which coincided with a sudden rainstorm, was a breakthrough for them. And just this past year, the band has been performing The Man Who in its entirety in concert. That’s quite a legacy that Why Does It Always Rain On Me?” has helped to establish. Long may the storm continue.
