Sometimes the weather changes rather rapidly. As Shakespeare puts it:
Full many a glorious morning I have seen,
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye. . .
And then permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face.
And he might have added,
It's just one more day, no one said there would be rain again;
Blame it on myself, blame it on the weatherman.
But of course he didn't. This last sentiment comprises the opening lines of a recent single by B*Witched. It is called, as everybody knows and indeed the lines themselves suggest, I Blame it on the Weatherman.
Disappointingly, as readers who follow these matters will already know, Blame it on the Weatherman has slipped in recent weeks to number 76 on what, to my children's great amusement, I tend to refer to as the Hit Parade, but what is properly called nowadays, "The Charts".
You will recall, however, that not so very long ago it was right up there at number one. B*Witched comprises four nice young girls of about 20 years of age or thereabouts, and to judge by their mission statement, they are modest but commendably ambitious: "We are four girls who happen to be in a band together. We don't want to be one dimensional. We don't want to be about one thing. We want to be about everything. We want B*Witched to be nothing less than a celebration of being alive."
The lyrics of Blame it on the Weatherman begin with a bad forecast but, as we have seen, it is far from clear who may be at fault. By the time we reach what is called the "pre-chorus", however, the reason for the depression, if not the meteorological connection, begins to make a little sense: we must cherchez le lad:
Standing on the shore calling out your name
I was here before, I could see your face
Only clouds will see tears are in my eyes
Empty like my heart, why d'you say goodbye?
The weather, however, dominates the chorus proper, and will strike a familiar chord with those who have experienced our Irish spring; it goes, give or take an "on" or two:
The rain goes on - on and on again
The rain goes on - on and on again
The rain goes on - on and on again
And so the song goes on, on and on again, ending, somewhat startlingly, with a volte-face and complete meteorological exoneration:
Maybe it's too late, maybe it's too late to try again,
Maybe I can't blame the weatherman.
O, innocence is bliss!