“Heart Full Of Rain”

“Heart Full Of Rain” is one of the final songs released by Thee Sixpence in early 1967, shortly before the band became Strawberry Alarm Clock. “Heart Full Of Rain” was released on the All American label with two different b-sides: “(Gotta Get The) First Plane Home” and the previously-released “Fortune Teller”. (Both versions, confusingly, had the same catalog number.)

“Heart Full Of Rain” is an obvious bridge between the garage punk of the band’s early days and the loopier pop/psych that would be explored after they changed their name to Strawberry Alarm Clock. This is largely due to the song’s inclusion of new keyboardist Mark Weitz. Finally, Thee Sixpence had a vibrant counterpoint to the fuzzy bass and wild, slicing lead guitar lines.

Musically, “Heart Full Of Rain” has a no-frills, consistent beat. More than anything else, it calls to mind the short instrumental “Pass Time With The SAC” from Incense And Peppermints. Again this is due to the cheerful organ sound that pulses throughout.

Towards the end of the song, just before the fade-out, the band sings a short chorus of “heart full of raaaaaaaain” that sounds like it was lifted directly from “Pushin’ Too Hard” by the Seeds.

As on other Thee Sixpence songs, the drumming is gloriously wild here, and the awesome lead guitar of Ed King drops jaws as usual.

“Heart Full of Rain” appears on…

“Heart Full Of Rain” b/w “(Gotta Get The) First Plane Home” (1967)
“Heart Full Of Rain” b/w “Fortune Teller” (1967)
Step By Step (1998)

6 thoughts on ““Heart Full Of Rain”

  1. Since nobody else mentioned this, I will add that Heart Full of Rain became the first, and best, track on the album “Confusion”, credited to Big Brother Ernie Joseph. That group used to go by the name Giant Crab . I think Holmes may have managed them as well. Until yesterday, I had no idea that this kick-ass tune that I have enjoyed for several years was written by Mark Weitz, as Holmes is credited as song writer. What a guy!

  2. [Thread moved to “Heart Full Of Soul”]

    That’s good news! The only problem with Thee Sixpence is that the music is in the shadow of mighty SAC, so not enough people know about it. What better way to remedy that than to have SAC do some Thee Sixpence 😀

  3. The SAC story has more than its share of bonehead managerial follies, doesn’t it? It’s hard to believe that you and Ed could write this song that became one of the biggest hits of the 60s and get no credit for it.

    Will the new SAC be recording or playing any Thee Sixpence stuff? 😀

  4. hopefully we will record Heartfull of Rain….

    we have played in recent times….and we actually have a rehearsal recording of it….but I’d like to do a real garage psych version of it.

  5. Hey…Point of interest:

    Mark Weitz wrote Heart Full of Rain. The Music, Lyrics and I sang it! My first original song, and I was cheated out by our managers greedy mind.

    Bill Holmes (our manager) put HIS name on it. He was a crook. I never made a penny on it —the same with Incense and peppermints. Ed helped me with the bridge of that tune, we both made zero. Carter and Gilbert were only the lyricists. Our names never made it on the label as writers because our manager had a disagreement with our producer (Frank Slay) and caused the big screw up to happen!

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