A Lotta rain is Fallin' - Trev Teasdel

A Lotta Rain is Fallin' - Trev Teasdel from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

I wrote the lyric at the GEC Stoke works in Coventry June 1970. Pete Waterman, who back then was my shop steward and also the top Soul DJ in Coventry,wrote the original music on acoustic guitar.Pete took the lyric away and brought in a cassette player the next week with his voice and music to it. I don;t have a copy of Pete's version from1970 but i put my own music to it in 1980, and this version features Steve Gillgallon on acoustic lead and myself on vocals and guitar. pete liked the line "There's a lotta rivers flowin' but the sea's learned how to fly" and repeated it in his version.

A LOTTA RAIN IS FALLIN’

A lotta rain is fallin’, but the earth has moved aside

There’s a lotta bullets flying but the victim’s found somewhere to hide

There’s a lotta rivers flowin’ but the seas learned how to fly.

There’s a lotta clouds a wondering which rockets nicked the sky

‘cos the roads are moving fast but the cars are standing still

and so much is happening yet nothing’s ever done

Oh we want to see the light but we’re dazzled by the sun.

(Bridge)

And some people’s only sunshine

Are their Cornflakes in the morning time

And the age of instant sunshine

In packets of bright display

I know will be dawning, in some future day.

There’s a lotta tears a fallin’, and more are being cried

There’s a lotta people trampled on as man takes another stride

There’s a lotta smoke a rising but the sky’s learned how to swim

There’s a lotta faces smiling but their hearts are feeling grim

Cos a lotta tension’s forming and the bags about to burst

There’s gotta be an answer cos the world is getting worse.

A lotta help is needed to get that truck back on the road

Cos too many people are pullin’ too heavier a load. 

Trev Teasdel June 1970

Below a later version of the song with Ian Digby on keyboards,Steve Gillgallon on bass and lead and Trev on guitar and vocals.

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Song Story

I wrote this at GEC Stoke Works, Coventry (Telecommunications section) where i worked in 1970. I was 19 and my shop steward, Pete Waterman, who also worked there at that time, spotted me writing and asked to have a look. I had no idea who he was at that time, apart from the shop steward who sometimes called us out for meetings. Pete wasn;t yet the icon he bcame with SAW back then but was Coventry's Top Soul DJ and had sang and played Rhythm guitar in local R & B bands like Tomorow's Kind and before that, the Pilgrims.

Pete took the lyric away and a week later brought it back and played me his version, using 7th chords, on a single cassette playe (state of the art for 1970!). His version, played on acoustic guitar, sounded like a cross between Paul McCartney with the rough R & B edges of Bob Dylan. Pete didn't have his own company at that stage and so nothing further happened with it although he did run a progressive music venue at the Walsgrave in Coventry which i helped out with, doing the door and helping the bands set up their equipment at the gigs. pete was going to perform it on stage there but never did. he liked the line "There’s a lotta rivers flowin’ but the seas learned how to fly." and repeated it twice in his version for emphasis. pete got me to write lyrics for other bands at the time but with bands constantly breaking up and reforming, nothing permanent came of it. Later, in 1973, I was running Hobo, Coventry Music and Arts magazine and Pete had left GEC to set up his Soul Hole record store, selling Soul imports and Northern Soul material. He wrote an article for the magazine on meeting the Three Degrees and Bowie and advertised in the magazine. In 1981, having lost contact with pete after I moved to Teesside to do my degree, I put my own acoustic music to it, which is the version here with Steve Gillgallon on lead guitar. the song was partly influenced by King Crimson's Epitaph and we later did a version with keyboards on, of which I haven;t yet got a decent version onto the computer.