Even a pop culture icon on the level of country music legend Willie Nelson benefits from exposure through popular TV shows. His great yet overlooked cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" featuring daughter Paula Nelson and appearing on the 2013 duets album To All the Girls... made a reappearance on the charts years later thanks to the HBO series Big Little Lies, starring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Zoe Kravitz, Meryl Streep and more.
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Per Headline Planet, the cover song's featured use in the show's season two finale, which aired in 2019, and its spot on the season's soundtrack helped catapult the song thirty-five places to number 60 on the Billboard Artist 100. In addition, Paula debuts at 49 on the Emerging Artists chart despite a 20-plus year recording career, while the song ranks 12th among all-genre Digital Song Sales.
On the country charts, the song made it to third on Country Digital Song Sales and 36th on the Hot Country Songs chart.
Read More: Hear Willie Nelson's Reverent Cover of Guy Clark's 'My Favorite Picture of You'
The album To All the Girls... benefited, as well, moving to the number 12 spot among Billboard Country Catalog Albums.
Looking beyond the recent hype, it a fantastic cover song from an album featuring duets with a who's who of talented women, including Loretta Lynn, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Rosanne Cash, Wynonna Judd, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, and Norah Jones.
The Big Little Lies soundtrack offers even more roots-based sounds, including songs by Elle King, Charles Bradley, and Leon Bridges.
John Fogerty wrote "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" for Creedence Clearwater Revival's 1970 album Pendulum. Despite years of rumors that the song represented the Vietnam War, with the rain symbolizing bombs, it more than likely deals with the crumbling relationships within a rootsy band that'd released six albums in three years and performed at many of the late '60s most storied rock festivals.
This article was originally published in 2019.
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