The song reached number three on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock chart in 1986, where it stayed for three weeks between July and August.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine has described it as "a stately anthem popular on album rock radio".
Gabriel's biographer Daryl Easlea wrote that the song was "a brooding opening to the album" which reflected "two very Eighties obsessions: AIDS and nuclear fallout".
Gabriel had an idea for a movie, Mozo. In it, villagers were punished for their sins with a blood-red rain. "Red Rain" was to be the theme song. This idea was eventually scrapped, although there was a mention of Mozo in the song "On the Air" in Peter Gabriel (II).