Stills from some of New Zealand's moodiest weather-themed hits. Photos / NZ On Screen
Stills from some of New Zealand's moodiest weather-themed hits. Photos / NZ On Screen
Opinion
The arrival of winter inspires NZ On Screen Content Director Irene Gardiner to start thinking about the great New Zealand weather songs.
We're coming into the last week of Autumn and the last week of NZ Music Month, so what better time to sit by the fire and listen to some great New Zealand songs about the weather. Some of the lyrical references may be more metaphorical than strictly meteorological - butthere are some great tunes about the New Zealand sun, rain, wind, and more.
Dragon's April Sun in Cuba, from 1977, is such a catchy classic, it has us all wanting to go somewhere sunny, be it Cuba, or anywhere for that matter. The song went to number two in Australia and number nine here - it's also No 10 on the APRA Top 100 NZ Songs list. Written by Dragon singer Marc Hunter and keyboardist Paul Hewson, both sadly no longer with us, the song is still a crowd favourite at Dragon gigs.
You can see the music video for April Sun in Cuba here:
April Sun in Cuba wasn't the only Dragon song with a weather reference - their 1983 hit Rain has also become one of the band's anthems. Another number two in Australia, Rain was written by Todd and Marc Hunter, with Todd's wife Joanna Piggott.
Watch the music video for Rain here:
DD Smash's Outlook for Thursday isn't only a weather-themed song, it also has a weather-themed music video, directed by TVNZ's Andrew Shaw. The song spent 23 weeks in the charts, and the video won Best Music Video at the 1983 Music Awards.
View Outlook for Thursday here:
Like Dragon, Crowded House have a couple of weather-referencing classics in their back catalogue, both making use of popular Kiwi weather expressions - the singalong Weather with You, and the wistful Four Seasons in One Day. The music video for Four Seasons was the first Crowded House video to be made in New Zealand. Director Kerry Brown and producer Bruce Sheridan wanted to emphasise the surreal, fantasy elements of the song, using distinctly NZ imagery. Locations included beaches and the dense bush of the South Island's West Coast, the plains of Central Otago and the Victorian architecture of Oamaru.
Watch Four Seasons in One Day here:
Our final selection isn't strictly a New Zealand weather song - it's actually a cover of a song by John Mayall. But The Underdogs version of Sitting in the Rain has become a New Zealand pop landmark. One of our earliest music promo clips, filmed for television in 1967 by the NZBC, the video is unfussy, and the band have no fear of the fact that they are obviously miming. The clip was used as a filler between programme breaks in the 1960s.
