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"Stormy Weather" is a 1933 song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem. It has since been covered by artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra and Clodagh Rogers.

The song tells of disappointment, as the lyrics, "Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky" show someone pining for her man to return. The weather is a metaphor for the feelings of the singer; "stormy weather since my man and I ain't together, keeps raining all the time."

In 1952, R&B group The Five Sharps recorded "Stormy Weather" for Jubilee Records, and test pressings were made. The master was later lost to fire, and only three extant original pressings (all on 78 RPM) are known to exist (although original 45 RPM issues on Jubilee are still, currently 55 years later [2007], rumored to exist). All known 45 RPM copies bearing the Jubilee label (as well as a 1972 reissue on Bim Bam Boom records) have been bootlegged from one of the three known 78 copies (a cracked copy, whose crack is audible on all reissues).

In 2004, Ethel Waters's version was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

The radio program Marketplace uses "Stormy Weather" as background music when the major stock market indices are down for the day. [1]

• Frank Sinatra recorded three studio versions of the song; the first as a single in the 1940s, the second, in 1959 for the album No One Cares, and lastly, in 1984 for the album L.A. Is My Lady.
• Judy Garland recorded a studio version of the song for her "London Sessions" with Capitol. Most notible is her live performance of the song recorded for the Grammy Award Winning Carnegie Hall Album.
• Django Reinhardt performs this song, and it can be found on the album Keep Cool: Guitar Solos (1950-1953).
• LaKisha Jones sung this song during her course of American Idol under the guidance of Tony Bennett.
• During the 1980s, there was a Chicago-based rhythm-and-blues a capella group called "Stormy Weather". They were strongly associated with the Chicago Cubs.
• Lena Horne became famous in 1943 for her rendition of Stormy Weather in the movie of the same name (which she made while on loan to 20th Century Fox from MGM). Horne's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.^[1]
• Rock star Jeff Lynne of ELO fame, recorded a cover of the song on his 1990 solo album Armchair Theatre.
• Rest Assured recorded a cover of the song in 1993 to co-incide with the song's 60th birthday although somewhat different from the original due to the use of samples and a rap; produced by Harry Sutcliffe.
• Reigning Sound recorded a cover of the song which opens their 2002 album 'Time Bomb High School'.
• Among the "balled-up ballads" (popular songs with racy lyrics added) in the nudie-cartoon anthology Sex to Sexty is this parody:

Can't go on
Doctor says I got the gon
Stormy Weather
Can't keep my poor legs together
Keeps running all the time.

• The song is referenced in the 1962 Academy Award nominated animated short Disney musical film, A Symposium on Popular Songs during the song, "Although I Dropped $100,000" written by Robert & Richard Sherman.
• The song is also referenced in the song "Frank Sinatra" by Cake. The following lyrics are found in the Chorus: "While Frank Sinatra sings "Stormy Weather", the flies and spiders get along together; cobwebs fall on an old, skipping record".