Robert Cray, “The Forecast Calls for Pain”

From time to time, I'm inviting other voices to contribute to Every Day I Write The Blog, to speak on their area of expertise. So without further ado, here's the All Time Top 5 Songs Mentioning Coffee, written by Guest Blogger Alex Scofield of Coffee Hero . . .

The first two lines of my favorite Robert Cray song:

Coffee for my breakfast
Shot of whiskey on the side

Abject desperation conveyed in 10 words. These lines set the tone for a song that’s funny, grim, and moving – and the title’s great, too. A relationship is about to go south, and Cray is going to start the day with a jolt of caffeine and alcohol, and an otherwise empty stomach. Nothing good is going to come of this.

“The Forecast” kicks off Cray’s “Midnight Stroll” album, in which doomed relationships are a recurring theme. In this song, signs point to an empty future; in “Consequences,” the relationship is doomed in the present tense; on “Bouncing Back,” he’s recovering from a doomed love that ran its course sometime in the past. But it’s the empty-stomach coffee that launches “Forecast” that provides the most visceral sensation of the whole album. Don’t try it at home, kids.






Alex Scofield is a freelance writer who lives in Bourne, Mass. He is a contributor to CoffeeHero.com