"Stand a Little Rain" is a song written by Donny Lowery and

Don Schlitz Donald Alan Schlitz Jr. (born August 29, 1952) is an American country music songwriter. For his songwriting efforts, Schlitz has earned two Grammy Awards, as well as four ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year awards. In 1993, he was inducted int ...

, and recorded by American country music group Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It was released in June 1986 as the first single from their compilation album ''

Twenty Years of Dirt ''Twenty Years of Dirt'', subtitled ''The Best of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band'', is the second compilation album from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It is a collection of hits from their career to that point. The album contained one new song, "Stand ...

''. The song reached number 5 on the U.S. ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart and number 3 on the Canadian ''RPM'' Country Tracks chart.

Critical reception

Kip Kirby, of ''

'' magazine reviewed the song favorably, saying that the band "delivers a slow, melancholy descant on the strengthening power of adversity." He goes on to call it a "change of pace from their whimsical, '

Partners, Brothers and Friends "Partners, Brothers and Friends" is a song written by Jeff Hanna and Jimmy Ibbotson and recorded by American country music group Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It was released in February 1986 as the third single and title track from the album '' Partn ...

In popular culture

During April 1992, the song was the unwitting subject of one of

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

's malapropisms when he referred to the group as the "Nitty Ditty, Nitty City Great" at a country music awards ceremony in Nashville: :"''I said to them, you know, there's another one that the Nitty Ditty, Nitty City Great -- aughter-- that they did, and it says, "If you want to see a rainbow, you've got to stand a little rain." We've had a little rain. New Hampshire has had too much rain. A lot of families are hurting.''"Remarks to Liberty Mutual Insurance Employees in Dover: January 15, 1992
/ref> This unusual phrasing was repeatedly used as an example of Bush's garbled

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

(notably, in

Dave Barry David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the ''Miami Herald'' from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comic ...

's book ''Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway''), which in turn helped publicize the band.

Chart performance

"Stand a Little Rain" debuted at number 61 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of June 21, 1986.

References

1986 singles 1986 songs Nitty Gritty Dirt Band songs Songs written by Don Schlitz Song recordings produced by Paul Worley Warner Records singles Songs written by Donny Lowery {{1986-country-song-stub