Released three months after the harder-rock styled single "Summer in the City", "Rain on the Roof" represented a return to the softer sound for which the Lovin' Spoonful had become known.

[1][2] Author Bernard Gendron considers the guitars reminiscent of harpsichords, leading him to place the song in the contemporary baroque rock trend.

[2] The recording fades out on a dominant seventh chord, which according to musicologist Walter Everett means the song "never [achieves a] full-cadence closure", leaving it feeling unresolved.

[18][19] In the October 8 issue of Billboard, the magazine's review panel highlighted the song as likely to reach the top 20 of the Hot 100,[20] and the single debuted on the chart the following week at number 76.

[1] Because the song shared its name with a 1931 composition by songwriter Ann Ronell,[23] Kama Sutra altered its title on Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful to "You and Me and Rain on the Roof".

[24] Billboard's reviewer counted "Rain on the Roof" as a continuation of the band's "unpredictable, fresh, original material", writing that the "clever rhythm ballad with [a] baroque feel" was a likely blockbuster.