What Is Chocolate Rain?

My husband has been going around for months singing in a deep bellow, “Chocolate Rain.”  It has been somewhat annoying, but just as annoying has been the begging, “You’ve just got to see the video of Chocolate Rain.”  Well, I guess I have been living in the dark the last several months because supposedly this “Chocolate Rain” is “IT.”  “IT” to me was just some crazy, facile video with some deep voiced guy just saying crazy random lyrics, and I’m not into the type of humor that just doesn’t make sense.  Even though “Chocolate Rain” might just be that simplistic song to many people, I had a grave misunderstanding of Chocolate Rain.  So, what is Chocolate Rain?  Simply, it is a song/video on YouTube of a young man with an extremely deep hypnotizing voice.  But, what struck me is the depth of the words behind the voice.  Here are the lyrics:

Chocolate Rain - Some stay dry and others feel the pain
Chocolate Rain - A baby born will die before the sin
Chocolate Rain - The school books say it can't be here again
Chocolate Rain - The prisons make you wonder where it went
Chocolate Rain - Build a tent and say the world is dry
Chocolate Rain - Zoom the camera out and see the lie
Chocolate Rain - Forecast to be falling yesterday
Chocolate Rain - Only in the past is what they say
Chocolate Rain - Raised your neighborhood insurance rates
Chocolate Rain - Makes us happy 'livin in a gate
Chocolate Rain - Made me cross the street the other day
Chocolate Rain - Made you turn your head the other way

Chocolate Rain - History quickly crashing through your veins
Chocolate Rain - Using you to fall back down again
Chocolate Rain - History quickly crashing through your veins
Chocolate Rain - Using you to fall back down again

Chocolate Rain - Seldom mentioned on the radio
Chocolate Rain - Its the fear your leaders call control
Chocolate Rain - Worse than swearing worse than calling names
Chocolate Rain - Say it publicly and you're insane
Chocolate Rain - No one wants to hear about it now
Chocolate Rain - Wish real hard it goes away somehow
Chocolate Rain - Makes the best of friends begin to fight
Chocolate Rain - But did they know each other in the light?
Chocolate Rain - Every February washed away
Chocolate Rain - Stays behind as colors celebrate
Chocolate Rain - The same crime has a higher price to pay
Chocolate Rain - The judge and jury swear it's not the face

Chocolate Rain - History quickly crashing through your veins
Chocolate Rain - Using you to fall back down again
Chocolate Rain - History quickly crashing through your veins
Chocolate Rain - Using you to fall back down again

Chocolate Rain - Dirty secrets of economy
Chocolate Rain - Turns that body into GDP
Chocolate Rain - The bell curve blames the baby's DNA
Chocolate Rain - But test scores are how much the parents make
Chocolate Rain - 'Flippin cars in France the other night
Chocolate Rain - Cleans the sewers out beneath Mumbai
Chocolate Rain - 'Cross the world and back its all the same
Chocolate Rain - Angels cry and shake their heads in shame
Chocolate Rain - Lifts the ark of paradise in sin
Chocolate Rain - Which part do you think you're 'livin in?
Chocolate Rain - More than 'marchin more than passing law
Chocolate Rain - Remake how we got to where we are.

So, by digging a little deeper, I found out that there was so much more to this ‘crazy’ video.  But, I like to dig even deeper, so I did.  Also on YouTube I found an interview of Tay Zonday, the writer and singer of “Chocolate Rain.”  In the midst of the predictable questions, there were two statements he made that caused me to give this song even more profound meaning.  The song started taking on many different layers for me.  Of course the song obviously takes on a claim that racism that is still prevalent in the world today even though we claim it is only in the past and we do not see it in today’s society.  However, Tay Zonday talked about the meaning of ‘Chocolate Rain’ in the aforementioned interview.  He stated that chocolate rain isn’t something that is so dogmatic that you can put your finger on it and explain . . . “this is what chocolate rain is.”  He said that in our society, everything has to have a conclusion; that our history is a history of conclusions.  He liked to compare chocolate rain to the 1980’s thought of ‘The Never Ending Story’ where chocolate rain is nothing.  It’s a question.  It’s a force.  It’s a force or question that not only affects your actions but also your thoughts, and that force can be different for each and every person.  He explained that everyone should let chocolate rain come to its own conclusion to what it is for themselves.

That is when it hit me.

If I digress for a moment, I think of the word chauvinist.  When hearing that word, everyone immediately thinks about how men view they are better than women.  That is a very direct use of the word, even though the word is much broader than that.  A chauvinist can be used to describe anyone that has a judgment or an opinion about a person. I have read that the word does not require the judgment to be right or wrong in the chauvinist’s opinion, only that the chauvinist is blind and unreasoning in coming to the opinion.  The chauvinist also ignores any facts which might counter his feelings.  Taking this definition in correlation with the song, when someone has a chauvinistic view we see many events that are described in the song – it doesn’t just have to be about the color.

Having children has really opened my eyes to see that so many people have a prejudice or a bias about something or some type of person.  It doesn’t have to be JUST about color.  We judge so many people for so many different things.  We really do put up a tent and say the world is dry when there is so much judgment raining all around us just lurking right beneath our noses.  We do it because we feel that we can have a little more control of our own lives when we pass judgment on others.  And, that right there is our sub-conscious excuse of the chocolate rain that we cause to rain down on the world, and we often allow that excuse to “use us to fall again,” and again and again.  We create the weather pattern.  And, we sub-consciously allow it to continue believing that we are not judging.  How often do we say,

            “Oh, that is so typical of that type of person.”

            “Ugh, look what kind of person we got to serve us.”