About The Song
Country singer Keith Whitley went in to recording his second album, Don’t Close Your Eyes, while still battling his demons. RCA was confident he had the talent to become a superstar, but was unwilling to put up with his alcoholism, which was interfering with his work and their profits. The label gave him an ultimatum: Clean up his act or find another home. Whitley opted for the former and found validation in the track “I’m No Stranger To The Rain,” a poignant song about withstanding life’s storms.
“That song is kind of autobiographical to me,” Whitley admitted in The Billboard Book Of Number One Country Hits. “Although I didn’t write the song, I could very well have written it. It really deals with survival. The line in that song that made me know I wanted to record it comes in that first verse:
I fought with the devil
Got down on is level
But I never gave in
So he gave up on me
I could really identify very strongly with that particular line.”
Unfortunately, it was the last single released in Whitley’s lifetime. In 1989, his demons got the better of him and he died of alcohol poisoning at age 34.
This was written by Sonny Curtis, a pop and country songwriter who performed with Buddy Holly’s band The Crickets in the late ’50s, and Ron Hellard, a Nashville songwriter who went on to co-write the Billy Dean hit “If There Hadn’t Been You.”
In a 2015 interview with The Tennessean, Hellard recalled how he and Curtis were grasping at straws when the title popped into his head.
“We had four writing sessions on this thing,” he said. “After lunch, we went back to his office, and I was trying to come up with something for us to write. I was spitting out titles of this and that, and ‘I’m No Stranger To The Rain’ just popped into my head. I don’t know where from … Sonny says, ‘Whoa! Let’s back up. That ‘Stranger’ thing sounds really interesting.’ So we wrote it, and it took us about four days to write that song until we were really satisfied with it. We knew we had done good work. I had no emotional involvement in the song at the time, but we were really happy with it.”
A couple years later, Whitley’s producer Garth Fundis got a hold of the track and played it for the singer. “And Keith said, ‘Man, somebody’s been reading my mail!'”
Video
Lyrics
I’m no stranger to the rain
I’m a friend of thunder
Friend, is it any wonder lightning strikes me?
I’ve fought with the devil
Got down on his level
But I never gave in, so he gave up on me
I’m no stranger to the rain
I can spot bad weather
And I’m good at finding shelter in a downpour
I’ve been sacrificed by brothers
Crucified by lovers
But through it all, I withstood the pain
I’m no stranger to the rain
When I get that foggy feeling
The one I’m feeling now
If I don’t keep my head up, I may drown
But it’s hard to keep believing
I’ll even come out even
While the rain beats a hole in the ground
And tonight, it’s really coming down
I’m no stranger to the rain
But there’ll always be tomorrow
And I’ll beg, steal, or borrow a little sunshine
And I’ll put this cloud behind me
That’s how the man designed me
To ride the wind and dance in a hurricane
I’m no stranger to the rain
Oh, no, I’m no stranger to the rain
I’m no stranger to the rain
I’m a friend of thunder
Friend, is it any wonder lightning strikes me?
But I’ll put this cloud behind me
That’s how the man designed me
To ride the wind and dance in a hurricane
I’m no stranger to the rain
Oh, no, I’m no stranger to the rain