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"It's Raining, It's Pouring" is an English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 nursery rhyme

Nursery rhyme

The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

. It has a Roud Folk Song Index

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 number of 16814.

The song is not found before the mid-twentieth century in the USA. It was noted in 1939 in New York by Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

 (1874–1954) and copyrighted in 1944 by Freda Selicoff.

Lyrics

The most common modern version of this rhyme is:

It's raining; it's pouring.

The old man is snoring.

He went to bed and bumped his head,

And he couldn't get up in the morning.

Interpretation

It has been suggested that the verse is a "classic description" of a head injury ("bumped his head") resulting in an epidural hematoma

Epidural hematoma

Epidural or extradural hematoma is a type of traumatic brain injury in which a buildup of blood occurs between the dura mater and the skull. The dura mater also covers the spine, so epidural bleeds may also occur in the spinal column...

, subsequent lucid interval and resultant decrease in conscious level ("snoring", "couldn't get up in the morning"). The source quotes a variant of the song in which the order of "went to bed" and "bumped his head" are reversed.

In popular culture

• A children's book of the same name, written by Kin Eagle and illustrated by Rob Gilbert
  Rob Gilbert
  Rob Gilbert is an American cartoonist, animation instructor, and illustrator best known for children's books and illustrations.Gilbert was born in New York City and began drawing at an early age...
  
  , expands on this rhyme to show what happens to the old man in all sorts of weather.
• The rhyme is featured in the song "It's Raining," in the 1962 debut album by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Other rhymes in the song include "Ladybug," "Starlight, Starbright," and "Won't Be My Father's Jack."
• "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)
  No More Tears (Enough is Enough)
  "No More Tears " is a duet from 1979 by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand. While Summer was famous for her disco material and Streisand for her more easy listening and soundtrack work , this song fused both sounds with a slow beginning which then develops into a disco song...
  
  ", a duet between Barbra Streisand
  Barbra Streisand
  Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
  
   and Donna Summer
  Donna Summer
  LaDonna Adrian Gaines , known by her stage name, Donna Summer, is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach...
  
  , is based around this song.
• Jose Feliciano
  José Feliciano
  José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...
  
   sang this as part of his release, "(Listen to the Falling) Rain".
• This rhyme is sung by children at the end of Supertramp
  Supertramp
  Supertramp are a British rock band formed in 1969 under the name Daddy before renaming to Supertramp in early 1970. Though their music was initially categorised as progressive rock, they have since incorporated a combination of traditional rock and art rock into their music...
  
  's song, "It's Raining Again
  It's Raining Again
  -Chart performance:The song debuted at #31 on 30 October 1982 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the highest debut on that chart for all of 1982, and peaked at #11...
  
  ".
• In the 1997 film Tower of Terror
  Tower of Terror (film)
  Tower of Terror is a 1997 made-for-TV supernatural thriller directed by D. J. MacHale. It is based on the theme park attraction, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, at Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida and was originally a presentation of The...
  
  , a Shirley Temple
  Shirley Temple
  Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
  
  -esque actress named Sally Shine, played by Lindsay Ridgeway
  Lindsay Ridgeway
  Lindsay Elizabeth Ridgeway is a former American child actress in film, television, and theater. She is a voice actor in several animated shows like Totally Spies! and plays the character Britney....
  
  , sings this song in a creepy manner in an elevator.
• Tom Waits
  Tom Waits
  Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
  
   used it in his song "A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun" on the 1978 album Blue Valentine
  Blue Valentine
  Blue Valentine is an album by Tom Waits, first released in 1978 on Asylum. The woman pictured with Waits on the back cover is Rickie Lee Jones, another singer/songwriter with whom he was having a relationship at the time....