Malvina Reynolds song recorded by
Joan Baez, the Searchers, the New Seekers, and Finntrio. Malvina's recording is heard on the
soundtrack to the
film,
Dogfight. Though the
lyrics to the song never mention it explicitly, the song was written about
radioactive fall-out from aboveground
atomic bomb testing in the
1950s.
Just a little boy standing in the rain
The gentle rain that falls for years
And the grass is gone, the boy disappears
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears
And what have they done to the rain?
The song still makes the round on the
folk circuit, thanks to both its inclusion in the book
Rise Up Singing and the continuing ecological damage caused by
acid rain.