The Rain in Spain
| "The Rain in Spain" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Julie Andrews as Eliza, Rex Harrison as Higgins, Robert Coote as Pickering in "The Rain in Spain" segment, 1957
|
||||
| Musical number from My Fair Lady | ||||
| Released | 1956 | |||
| Genre | Musical theatre | |||
| Writer(s) | Composer: Frederick Loewe Lyricist: Alan Jay Lerner |
|||
| Chronology | ||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Act I |
|---|
|
"Overture" "Busker Sequence" "Why Can't the English?" "I'm an Ordinary Man" "With a Little Bit of Luck (Reprise)" "Just You Wait" "The Servants' Chorus (Poor Professor Higgins)" "The Rain in Spain" "I Could Have Danced All Night" "Ascot Gavotte" "On the Street Where You Live" "Eliza's Entrance/Embassy Waltz" |
| Act II |
|---|
|
"You Did It" "Just You Wait (Reprise)" "On the Street Where You Live (Reprise)" "Show Me" "The Flower Market/Wouldn't It Be Loverly? (Reprise)" "Get Me to the Church on Time" "A Hymn to Him" "Without You" "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" "I Could Have Danced All Night (Reprise) / Finale" |
"Overture"
"Busker Sequence"
"Why Can't the English?"
"I'm an Ordinary Man"
"With a Little Bit of Luck (Reprise)"
"Just You Wait"
"The Servants' Chorus (Poor Professor Higgins)"
"The Rain in Spain"
"I Could Have Danced All Night"
"Ascot Gavotte"
"On the Street Where You Live"
"Eliza's Entrance/Embassy Waltz"
"You Did It"
"Just You Wait (Reprise)"
"On the Street Where You Live (Reprise)"
"Show Me"
"The Flower Market/Wouldn't It Be Loverly? (Reprise)"
"Get Me to the Church on Time"
"A Hymn to Him"
"Without You"
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"
"I Could Have Danced All Night (Reprise) / Finale"
"The Rain in Spain" is a song from the musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The song was published in 1956 very similar to piano trio in C minor 3rd movement by Josep Suk.
The song is a turning point in the plotline of the musical. Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering have been drilling Eliza Doolittle incessantly with speech exercises, trying to break her Cockney accent speech pattern. The key lyric in the song is "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain", which contains five words that a Cockney would pronounce with [æɪ] or [aɪ] – more like "eye" [aɪ] than the Received Pronunciation diphthong [eɪ]. With the three of them nearly exhausted, Eliza finally "gets it", and recites the sentence with all long-a's. The trio breaks into song, repeating this key phrase as well as singing other exercises correctly, such as "In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen", and "How kind of you to let me come", in which Eliza had failed before by dropping the leading 'H'.
...
Wikipedia