The Daily Epic Earworm For December 31, 2025
Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: The Weather Girls — “It’s Raining Men”
Martha Wash and Izora Armstead got their start as Two Tons o’ Fun, the backing vocalists for disco singer Sylvester in 1976. In 1979, the duo was signed to their own record deal with Fantasy Records. Two Tons o’ Fun scored dance hits in the United States with “Earth Can Be Just Like Heaven” and “I Got the Feeling” in 1980, but the duo didn’t really break out until 1982, when they signed with Columbia Records.
The duo changed their name to the Weather Girls and released their third studio album, Success. Success is exactly what Wash and Armstead found with the album’s first single, “It’s Raining Men.” The song topped the Billboard Dance chart and became the pair’s first international hit. The song was certified gold or platinum in six countries and is still the duo’s signature hit decades later. The epic earworm earned the Weather Girls a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
No Rain for This Summer
While “It’s Raining Men” seems like it was written specifically for the Weather Girls, it was not. Songwriters Paul Shaffer and Paul Jabara wrote the song with Donna Summer in mind. Jabara had scored Summer a major hit in 1978 with the song “Last Dance,” which won the singer an Oscar, a Grammy, and a Golden Globe. However, Summer had just become a born-again Christian and rejected the song as blasphemous. Shaffer would later tell Vanity Fair that the singer went so far as to send Jabara a bible in the mail the next day.
Shaffer and Jabara ended up offering the song to Diana Ross, Cher, and Barbra Streisand, who all rejected the song, as well. It was only then that they offered the song to Wash and Armstead, and they rejected it, too. In fact, the duo rejected the song several times before Jabara’s pleadings finally wore them down. Ironically, it was the song that prompted the duo’s name change. The single came out before the full album’s release, and with the duo saying that they were the Weather Girls at the beginning of the song, fans seemed confused. The label talked to Wash and Armstead, and the change was made before the album hit stores.
The Weather Girls lasted until 1988 and then broke up. Armstead restarted the group in 1991, teaming this time with her daughter, Dynelle Rhodes. Armstead passed away in 2004, but her daughter has kept the act alive and is currently teamed with Dorrey Lin Lyles. The different incarnations of the Weather Girls produced two more dance hits, “Can You Feel It” and “Break You.”
After leaving the Weather Girls, Wash had to continually fight for her success. The groups Seduction, Black Box, and C+C Music Factory all had hits using her vocals, but left her uncredited for her work. She sued in all three cases and won. Wash worked with C+C Music Factory briefly after the lawsuit before focusing on her solo career. She has had 13 Top 10 singles and is still active today.
