#77 - Harlem Rain

Artist: Richie Sambora
Album: Undiscovered Soul
Other Versions: None
Era: N/A

Lyrics

"The old man down on the corner is drowning in his pain."

Richie Sambora, marry me. Just for that one line, marry me. Whenever I get overly Richie-bashing, I listen to "Harlem Rain". It is absolutely impossible to not love and respect the man who wrote this song and performs it with such conviction.

I love the intro to this, Richie just kind of picking at his guitar. There's that first low chord, and then the picking, and it's gorgeous and provides an excellent preparation for the song. I'm a fan of long, complicated intros that don't have a lot to do with the song ("Let it Rock" and "One Wild Night"), and I'm a fan of slow builds where instrument one is joined by instrument two and then instrument three and then the singing starts, but this really trumps them all. He captures the entire mood of the song in something like 20 seconds, and just that intro gives me goosebumps.

This might be the finest lyrical composition Richie has ever produced. There is pain and sorrow and just intense emotion behind every single line, every word. This is another one where you should most definitely go read the lyrics, even if you don't normally. Richie's solo work is, first and foremost, poetry. Most of his songs can be taken lyrically without the music behind them and you can still feel what he's trying to coax you to feel. Where David relies heavily on his piano to make you feel what he wants, Richie does it with his lyrics.

That's not to discount the music here, because that would be a shame. This is some of the most haunting guitar work I've ever heard. Haunting is really the best word to describe the whole song, but this guitar playing just hits me hard. This song punches me in the gut and weasels its way into my veins and always stays with me for a long time afterwards. It's that picking of the guitar, the individual notes just floating over the rest of the music but just under the music. Musically, this is pain - there's the dull ache punctuated by these twinges of just acute, focused suffering, and his guitar demonstrates that perfectly. You ask me if Richie's the most technically proficient guitar player ever, and I couldn't tell you. You ask me if Richie pours his heart and soul into everything he plays, if he can manipulate your feelings with his music just as much as he can with his lyrics, if he's the best at that, and I don't hesitate to say yes.

The way he sings this brings tears to my eyes. You can hear all the pain that comes across in the lyrics and in that guitar playing, focused through that amazing voice of his. Richie doesn't have my favorite voice in Bon Jovi, not even my second favorite since I really got into Tico's, but I'd say he has the most expressive and emotional voice of all of them. The Bon Jovi songs that really hit me hard, that really stick with me, are usually songs that make good use of Richie's voice. When Richie wants you to feel something, he feels it first and it works its way into his voice. When he sings "one more night on the streets of pain" like he's trying to force the words out through some crushing heartache, I cry. Every single time, without fail, it just kills me. I'm crying right now as I type. It's gorgeous. And that "vaaaanishing" with about 30 seconds left in the song is like a fucking knife.

I don't know that this is my favorite Richie song, but I don't think I could name another song, by anyone, that is as gut-wrenchingly emotional as "Harlem Rain". I've seen lots of movies that are so depressing they stick with me for days, but never have I come across another five minutes and three seconds of such raw heartache that hit me this hard and stay with me for this long. I'll be thinking about this song for days, and that isn't a bad thing.

My Rating: 10/10

Slippery vs New Jersey tomorrow:

• Without Love
• Blood on Blood

And a question: do you prefer having two or four songs to choose from? I like two, because it's easier to remember off the top of my head what won , but if you guys like having four, I'm flexible. Or maybe you're cuh-ray-zay and like three. Let me know!