The rain is Tess, the fire is Joe and they call the wind Mariah. Apparently.
Is that actually true? Did they really use those names for those thing back then?
Do they still?
Why those names?
What other things did they give names to?
(and for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5C4kdANSUw )
Regarding Maria, see this Cafe Society thread. Regarding Joe and Tess, somehow, I doubt it.
Away out here
We got a name
For wind, and rain, and fire.
The wind is “wind”,
The rain is “rain”,
And we call the fire, “fire”.
“FIRE”!
“FIRE”!
We call the fire, “fire”!
And the fire is hot! Hot is the heat! The heat is . . . HOT!
Not Joe. Joe is neither fire or hot.
I believe the fire answers to “Joan” not “Joe”
See Paint Your Wagon.
As Frederick and Alan J. would say, “Don’t let it be forgot / that once there was a spot / where they talked to trees and called natural phenomena by women’s names/ because they were all quite neurot / -ic.”
Fire is “Joe.”
Huh. I always thought they called the fire Joel, not prosaic Joe. Sounded more exotic, spiritual sort of - which is what one is trying to be if one is going around naming things in such fashion. It also sounds like something one might do if one was bored and lonely out of one’s heart and mind. Hey, I like that song.
Haven’t you ever had a hot cup o’joe?
Next you’ll tell me that Maria Von Trapp didn’t really like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.
The fire is Jo - a feminine name like Maria and Tess.
cite?
Sorry, it got burned up in the …
“Folk Music Greatest Hits” (late '70’s edition), which I own but can’t readily show.
Common sense a la Gary T - C’mon, these things always get slightly whimsical feminine names. Not weird ones like Penelope or pedestrian ones like Ann, and certainly not pedestrian masculine ones like Joe. :p, but I am serious.
When I put “The rain is Tess, the fire Joe” lyrics into Google, I get 124 hits.
When I use “The rain is Tess, the fire Jo” lyrics, I get 3 hits.
The actual lyric (according to my book, and how it was sung in the movie [ here on youtube ] is “the rain is Tess, the fire’s Jo.” Googling that vs. “…the fire’s Joe” gets more hits for “Joe” - 614 to 33 - but the ratio is less lopsided. I believe this is a result of mistakes being entered and repeated rather than a confirmation that “Joe” is correct.
The song was copyrighted in 1951. At that time, hurricanes were given only feminine names, a practice which continued until 1979. I find it much more plausible that in 1951 the songwriter was using feminine names for all three of the “forces of nature” in the song. In contrast, probably 98+% of the people who entered the lyrics on the internet weren’t born until after 1979, and thus had a different subconscious expectation with regard to feminine/masculine names. Furthermore, I’ll bet the overwhelming majority had only heard the lyric, not read it.
Now, I’ll gladly admit error if an authoritative cite contradicts me. I’d love to see a 1951 copy of the sheet music. But until then, I’ll take my book as the best authority presented so far. I’ll further maintain that when the song was written, 99% of the people who heard the lyric would have assumed “Jo” rather than “Joe.” It’s these young whippersnappers with their internets who grew up hearing about Hurricane Arthur and Hurricane Matthew who think they’re hearing “Joe.” 
She does in the alternate universe where she looks like Julie Andrews.
It said “Joe” in our Camp Fire camp songbook* in the 1980’s, so obviously, some people born before 1979 thought it was “Joe”.
*not a professional, official publication–instead, something that was typed up (probably by someone’s mom) and mimeographed.
Did anybody even look at the thread Freddy the Pig so thoughtfully linked?
Gary T, the huge hole in your argument is that we aren’t talking about hurricanes or wind or rain, but their opposite: fire. It makes just as much sense in the abstract that if you make rain feminine you’d make fire masculine.
I can’t find older sheet music for the song, but I will admit that the one hit I found through Google Books supports you.
Their Words are Music: The Great Theatre Lyricists and Their Lyrics By Lehman Engel
I’ll take that cite over an abstract argument. Such a book presumably would be very careful to get the lyrics completely accurate.
Well, it would except it contradicts MY opinion. 
I’m impressed you found that. I’m not familiar with Google Books. Ya done good.