Belinda Carlisle - Summer Rain (Official Music Video)

It was only while I was watching this that I realised how badly the video has dated and the way in which it is both quintessentially eighties but also no longer feels like it does justice to the song.

'Summer Rain' is, apparently, one of Carlisle's favourites of her solo career, and I always felt it was the strongest single and song from the Runaway Horses album.

What's interesting hearing it now is the way it seems to hark back to an earlier era, to artists like the Shangri-La's, while mirroring the themes of a contemporary song such as Madonna's 'Pray For Spanish Eyes' (Like A Prayer and Runaway Horses were both released in 1989). It also anticipates a song like Lana Del Rey's 'Blue Jeans'.

In each case, there's that element of slightly vintage melodrama, of harking back to the past, of a sort of 1950's and 1960's hinterland that they all invoke that's very evocative and powerful. It's the kind of theme that will come around in pop culture again and again, but 'Summer Rain' is a particularly great take on it.