In the world of country music, breakup songs are usually soaked in heartbreak, regret, and bottom-shelf whiskey. But Luke Combs flipped that tradition on its head in 2017 with “When It Rains It Pours,” a song that wasn’t written to heal a broken heart — it was written to poke one.
Released in June 2017 as the second single from his debut album This One’s for You, When It Rains It Pours became Combs’ second consecutive No. 1 hit. But behind its playful hook and easygoing swagger lies an origin story rooted in pure, unfiltered pettiness — something Combs has openly admitted with a laugh.
At the time, Combs was fresh off a breakup and sitting in a Nashville writing session with his friends and co-writers Ray Fulcher and Jordan Walker. The problem? Luke wasn’t writing. He was glued to his phone, deep in a tense text exchange with his ex-girlfriend. The vibe was going nowhere fast.
That’s when Walker cut through the tension with a suggestion that would change everything: “We should write a song… just to make her mad.”
Instead of a sad, self-pitying ballad, the trio pivoted hard. They decided to write a song about a guy whose life inexplicably gets better the moment his girlfriend leaves. The gloomy phrase “when it rains, it pours” was turned on its head and transformed into a string of absurdly good luck — winning money on a scratch-off, landing a beach vacation, fishing whenever he wants, and never having to see his “ex-future mother-in-law” again.
The result was a breezy, feel-good breakup anthem that felt refreshingly honest. It didn’t beg for sympathy. It celebrated relief.
What started as a joke — even a little revenge fantasy — quickly became a cultural juggernaut. The song hit No. 1 on both Billboard’s Country Airplay and Hot Country Songs charts, cementing Combs as one of country music’s fastest-rising stars. In October 2025, it reached an even rarer milestone: Diamond certification from the RIAA, representing more than 13 million units sold or streamed.
The irony doesn’t stop there. Jordan Walker later revealed that the royalties from the “revenge song” helped him buy an engagement ring for his own fiancée — a poetic twist no one in that room could’ve predicted.
Even the music video nods to the song’s playful spirit, showing Combs reveling in newfound freedom and even scoring a waitress’s phone number. In a full-circle moment for fans, that waitress was played by Nicole Hocking — Combs’ real-life girlfriend at the time and now his wife.
By choosing humor over heartbreak, Luke Combs proved that sometimes the best breakup songs aren’t about getting even. They’re about getting lucky — and maybe, just a little bit, getting the last laugh.