The 1986 Rain Song Lim Jae-beom Wanted to Hear Again

Part 4 of 13 in The Man Who Hit No. 1 After He Died: Kim Hyun-sik

No. 10, “One Rainy Evening,” sat buried inside the album that first made Kim Hyun-sik a 300,000-copy seller. Thirty-nine years later, in 2025, it went onto an audition stage dressed in traditional Korean vocal style, and judge Lim Jae-beom said he wanted to hear it again. I felt exactly the same watching that stage, and I went straight back to Kim’s original.

Singer No. 26 – “One Rainy Evening” (Sing Again 4, JTBC) — 1 million views

The original and covers add up to about 1.55 million views, and two-thirds of that came from a single performance in October 2025.

The hidden track on a 300,000-copy album

“One Rainy Evening” appeared on Kim’s third album, released in December 1986 (Wikipedia; Melon). It was his first album with his own band, Spring Summer Fall Winter, and it sold more than 300,000 copies after “Like Rain, Like Music” took off about a year late (Chosun Ilbo, Nov. 1, 2025). The album had three rain songs: “Love Song in the Rain,” “Like Rain, Like Music,” and this one. Only “Like Rain, Like Music” became a hit. This song survived in concert halls and on Shinchon Blues stages.

Also read: He Brought Ten Songs. Kim Hyun-sik Took One: "Hidden Road"

An evening getting wet in an alley

비 오는 어느 저녁 / 골목길 거닐다

One rainy evening, / wandering down an alley,

— Lyrics and music by Kim Hyun-sik (1986), excerpt

The singer leans against an unfamiliar wall and listens to the rain. Someone is held in his arms as they both get soaked, and together they watch the rain fall between dim streetlights. An old, cheerful song drifts in from somewhere, and he asks the rain not to stop, to soak his heart through. If “Like Rain, Like Music” is the rain you stand in while thinking of someone who left, this is the rain you stand in with someone who is still beside you. It’s one of the rare rain songs by Kim that isn’t sad.

Blues come back as gugak

On Oct. 21, 2025, in episode 2 of JTBC’s Sing Again 4, contestant No. 26, introduced as the creator of “Joseon pop,” chose this song. The network titled the clip a performance that “broke down the walls between genres.” Judge Lim Jae-beom praised it by saying he actually wanted to hear the song again, and the clip passed 1 million views within a year. No. 26 later reworked RIIZE’s “Boom Boom Bass” as gugak, traditional Korean music, and got a unanimous “All Again” (Sports Kyunghyang, Nov. 26, 2025).

The song was originally a regular on Shinchon Blues stages. Shinchon Blues vocalist Jung Kyung-hwa sang it with the band on KBS’s Show Saturday Special.

Jung Kyung-hwa feat. Shinchon Blues – “One Rainy Evening” (KBS) — 40,000 views

In 2021, on TV Chosun’s The Gift: National Singer, Park Kwang-sun, formerly of Ulala Session, opened with this song.

Park Kwang-sun – “One Rainy Evening” (National Singer, TV Chosun) — 77,000 views

No K-pop idol has posted an official cover of this song yet. Instead, the singer who turned an idol song into gugak used the same hands to bring Kim back. Every time his songs come back in new clothes like this, the fan in me feels he’s still here with us.

Next, Part 5: No. 9, “Always by Your Side.” The year he got out of jail, he made a song about being someone’s friend his title track.

Previous: Part 3 — AI Pulled His Voice Out of an Old Tape and Put Him Back on Stage

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Sources: Wikipedia “Kim Hyun-sik” discography; Melon (third album, Dec. 5, 1986; Weekly Kyunghyang, Nov. 8, 2005, lists it on the fourth album); Chosun Ilbo (Nov. 1, 2025); JTBC Voyage and JTBC Music official clip titles (Sing Again 4 Ep. 2, Oct. 21, 2025); Sports Kyunghyang (Nov. 26, 2025). View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.