David Nail

David Nail, 'Let It Rain': Story Behind the Lyrics
Posted Feb. 8th 2011
by Nancy Dunham

David Nail's happy marriage leaves him scrambling a bit these days to write sad songs. Consider 'Let It Rain,' which David co-wrote with Jonathan Singleton, who also penned David's breakout tune 'Red Light.'

David tells The Boot about the day the two wrote 'Let It Rain,' which was released to radio this week, and the movie that inspired it.

Prior to getting married, most of my relationships ended sort of sour. I was never short of material to dive back into. Now I'm happily married and in a real positive place, and when it came time to start writing for [my upcoming album], I was like, "Man, I don't have any miserable moments to pull from now. I think I tapped that well dry."

I can't remember who came up with the phrase 'Let it Rain.' Jonathan came in with this really cool guitar groove. It was unlike anything I had ever written and I just loved it. It's not a bona fide tempo song but with the guitar, the way it moves, it moves like a tempo song.

We started talking about [the phrase] 'Let it Rain' and a scene in the Zach Braff movie, 'The Last Kiss.' Zach's engaged and meets this young girl, they had their moment and [then he has] mental anguish. He tells [his pregnant fiancée] about it. I thought the scene at the end of the movie was one of the most unique I had seen. The fiancée had thrown him out of the house and his future father-in-law said, "You have to wait until she's ready: she may never be ready."

He goes home and sits on front steps. Days go by and the weather gets bad. He sleeps on the steps. At the end of the movie, there's no dialogue. You see [his fiancée] crack the door open and you don't know if she opens it up and throws all his stuff out, you don't know if she let's him in, you don't know if they have a talk.

It's a really powerful scene and I just remember trying to wrap my head around that, to describe how there can be years of good but you can't hide one night that you forgot to wear a ring. Your life can be going just perfectly and everything's fine and one little mistake, can throw the wrench of all wrenches into it.

I always try to put my mind around something and put myself into it. That's what I did [in writing this song]. I thought about what I would do and how I would feel.

Sarah Buxton was kind enough to sing the background part on ['Let it Rain']. It became a very involved background part and very unique to the song.

I'm very excited about the song but it's still very new to me. There's a nervous anxiousness because I haven't had a chance to live with it, but we're all very excited about it.