With all due respect to Classics IV, their 1968 hit “Stormy” is a terrible song.
My own biases are clearly getting in the way here. I’ve never been a huge fan of “southern rock,” and Classics IV are usually classified as “soft southern rock,” which for me is like trying to improve a beet salad by drizzling it with Coke Zero.
The song was a hit – it peaked at #5 – so it must have done a few things right. But it does so many things wrong.
The sax solo. The lazy fade-out instead of a real ending. And the lyrics, which read like the pages of a heartbroken 15-year-old’s diary, complete with some of the most agonizing, cringe-inducing metaphors you’re likely to read all year:
Yesterday’s love was like a warm summer breeze
But, like the weather you changed
Now things are dreary, baby
And it’s windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Deep.
The good news is that The Meters, a legendary funk band whose work was sampled regularly (at least 500 times according to this site) during hip-hop’s golden age, took this sappy soft southern song and made it work. Not just made it work, but found the good that was already there, magnified it, and made it beautiful.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The Meters’ drummer is hands-down one of the best of all time. His syncopated brilliance was sampled in our featured song from week 276, but here his is as restrained as it gets, with rim hits as gentle as blissed-out finger snaps. And his name is Zigaboo Modeliste. That doesn’t contribute to this song’s beauty, but I felt that you should know.
2. The guitar part gives the song a bluesy, plaintive feel that works far better than any weather-related metaphors.
3. The lyrics are done away with, but the melodic hook, those four descending notes, are still there, played on the organ. The organ also contributes the chaotic, stormy noise of the song’s first ten seconds, in case you were wondering, and it’s the only obvious reference to storminess in this version of the track.
Recommended listening activity:
Digging up a poorly-written email you sent years ago and giving it a do-over.