After penning hits for artists like Elvis Presley and Ronnie Milsap, Eddie Rabbitt decided to switch to recording. He found success in that realm as well with rockabilly-tinged songs such as “Drivin’ My Life Away,” helping establish the country-rock sound that permeated the ’80s country music scene. On this day (Jan. 17) in 1981, Eddie Rabbitt was at No. 1 with his shuffling, finger-snappin’ smash hit, “I Love a Rainy Night.”
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The Eddie Rabbitt Hit That Was Nearly Lost to Time
While there are certainly no shortage of country songs about sunshine, Eddie Rabbitt’s “I Love a Rainy Night” was an ode to the sheer magic of inclement weather: I love a rainy night / I love to hear the thunder / Watch the lightnin’ when it lights up the skies / You know it makes me feel good.
After recording part of the song one stormy evening in the late’ 60s, Rabbitt came across the tape years later among a collection he kept in his basement.
“When we’d get together to write, he’d always bring up this song title,” Even Stevens, who co-wrote “Rainy Night” with Rabbitt and David Malloy, told The Tennessean in 2014.
Stevens continued, “He really didn’t have the melody, but he had this little idea, and he says, ‘I just thought, one night, I wasn’t depressed during a rainstorm. I was really happy, and I put this little thing down. We ought to write that.’ He’d bring it up, and I’d go, ‘Eh, I don’t know what to do with it.’…And then one night, it just clicked.”
[RELATED: The Top 8 Elvis Presley Country Songs]
This Song Knocked a Legend Off the Top
Released in November 1980, “I Love a Rainy Night” followed “Drivin’ My Life Away” as the second single off Eddie Rabbitt’s album Horizon. And it certainly lived up to its predecessor’s standards, displacing Dolly Parton’s signature hit “9 to 5” at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
While Dolly would reclaim her title the following week, “I Love a Rainy Night” also reached the top of the country and adult contemporary singles charts. (Notably, this marked the last time that the pop chart featured back-to-back country singles at No. 1 until August 2023, when Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” beat out “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen.)
For Eddie Rabbitt, it marked the eighth of 17 No. 1 hits released between 196 to 1990. Rabbitt died May 7, 1998, of lung cancer in Nashville. He was just 56 years old.
Featured image by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
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