“I…saw…you (and him!) walking in the raaaain…You were holding hands and I…will never be the same.”
Chances are you’ve heard those lyrics at some point in your life, even if you weren’t aware of what or when their origin was. Maybe you thought it was an artist you’re otherwise familiar with, or that the tune was just a sweet number about heartbreak. But amazingly, as a Jedi might say, every word of that is wrong. “The Rain,” a one-hit wonder by Oran “Juice” Jones, is a 1986 single with a video that initially feels retro-kitschy, but gets a little creepy when you realize it’s maybe kinda being sung by a stalker, and then downright weird when, at the three-minute mark, it segues into a spoken-word tirade that kills the song in its tracks:
Thirty-two years later, Donald Glover–who looks more like Jones than he does Billy Dee Williams–has taken his Saturday Night Live hosting opportunity to very specifically parody that particular music video. And while picking on a guy who had such a short career might seem like punching down, Jones will probably get more views on his Vevo channel tonight than in the past 20 years, just so people can appreciate how obsessed Glover and the SNL writers must have been to create a spoof this thorough. Also, the original deserves it, with Glover’s version taking the gross machismo to levels of completely self-destructive insanity as singer “Raz P. Berry,” deconstructing the spoken-word part in particular.
It’s always a risk doing an impersonation that’s this targeted at something most viewers may well not remember. But for those who do, it’s a treat.
Was this the Oran “Juice” Jones callback you’d always hoped for? Tell us what you think in comments.
Image: NBC
We are a bunch of Glover-lovers:
- Donald Glover shows off Lando’s cape closet.
- Glover’s Deadpool animated series script that wasn’t.
- That time Glover bought 113 boxes of Girl Scout cookies to help a fan out.
