A Fortunate Son Looking Out My Back Door in Lodi to See Proud Mary

When people talk about the "Golden Age" of rock-n-roll, they are probably talking about the ten year span between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s. Ask people to name bands from that era and you're likely to hear names like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and The Who, Led Zeppelin and Eagles. But there's one influential and hugely successful band from that era that seems to have fallen out of the conversation of the iconic artists of the time. It's a band that performed at the iconic Woodstock Festival and holds the dubious distinction of having the most #2 singles (5) without ever having a #1 hit. In four short years - between 1968 and 1972 - this band sold more than 30 million copies of their albums and singles. In a span of just 3 years (1968-71), they had 10 Top 20 hits, including 9 that made it into the Top 10, with 7 of those reaching the Top 5. The band I'm referring to, of course, is Creedence Clearwater Revival. CCR, primarily the brainchild and outlet of lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter John Fogerty, is a band that sounded different from everything else released in that era. Despite the fact that they hailed from California, they pioneered "swamp rock" and "Southern rock," singing songs about bayous and the Mississippi River. They produced searing political rockers like "Fortunate Son" while also producing introspective ballads like "Have You Ever Seen The Rain." They produced successful covers of songs by others ("Suzie Q" and "Heard It Through The Grapevine") while also producing hit songs that spawned successful covers of their own by others ("Proud Mary".) While they lacked the screaming fans of The Beatles or the longevity of The Rolling Stones, they still produced an incredible catalog of music that undoubtedly stands the test of time 50 years later. In honor of this underappreciated, uniquely American rock band, here is my list of the top 5 CCR songs: 

 5.) "Lookin' Out My Back Door" - Released in the summer of 1970, this trippy, country rock jammer features prominent Dobro amongst lyrics describing colorful, dream-like imagery. Similar to The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," some surmised that the song was either about drugs or a product of their use. Fogerty, however, says that he wrote it for his then 3-year-old son and was partly inspired by a Dr. Seuss book. The song peaked at #2 in October 1970. Bonus points for name dropping Buck Owens, another trail blazing singer based in California. 

4.) "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" - The  release right after our #5 selection in January 1971, it's a ballad that asks "have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?" Taken at face value, it's a song about rain and weather. But its actually a metaphor for the dysfunction in the band and how the band's members were sad and depressed despite being hugely successful, wealthy and famous. Fogerty's aching vocals in the chorus are backed by a Rhodes piano that helps to emphasize the downcast nature of the song. It peaked at #8 on the Billboard charts in the spring of 1971. It's lyrics proved prescient as guitarist Tom Fogerty left the band shortly after the song's release and the band itself disbanded the following year. 

3.) "Lodi" - Of all of the songs CCR released, this wasn't one of their biggest hits, peaking at only #52 on the charts. It's certainly less well known than the band's other big hits, but it's always been a favorite of mine, as I've previously mentioned in other blog posts regarding my favorite lyrics. Whereas the meaning of the first two songs on this list can be open to interpretation, "Lodi" is a straightforward story song. Its lyrics tell of a singer stuck in a boring, middle-of-nowhere town, singing songs in bars in front of drunk people and unable to raise enough money to afford a bus or train fare to leave town. Hence the chorus "Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again." But it's the little things that elevate this song above the typical, run-of-the-mill "life on the road" songs - two little things, back-to-back, heading into the last verse. The first is a key change, adjusting it up a half note. The second is the searing lines "If I only had a dollar for every song I've sung/Every time I had to play while people sat there drunk..." It pulls the whole lyric and the whole visual picture they paint together. While John Fogerty escaped the fate of the character in the song, that lyric has always stuck with me and is one of the reasons this song makes the list ahead of some of their more well known tunes. Ironically - given the name dropping done in our #5 song above - this song has been covered by many other musicians, not the least of whom was none other than Buck Owens. 

2.) "Proud Mary" - Probably the band's most widely recognized song, "Proud Mary" peaked at #2 on the charts in March 1969. Fogerty's lyrics channel Mark Twain in describing life on a river boat and escaping from the dredge of a steady but boring job. The music, meanwhile, creates the chugging, train-like feel that propels the song forward. The driving tempo of the song is a perfect match for a song about life on a river. It's an amalgamation of rock and the blues and Southern music that is catchy and instantly recognizable. Even people who are unfamiliar with CCR can still probably sing along with the chorus of "Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river." The song was famously covered by Ike and Tina Turner in the early '70s, once again become a Top 5 hit, though this time as a soulful, funk classic. 

1.) "Fortunate Son" - Our top pick is a searing protest song that is every bit as relevant in the year 2020 as it was when it first hit the airwaves more than 50 years ago in the fall of 1969. While the song was obviously written and released in the shadow of Vietnam, the lyrics are incisive and broad enough to apply not just to that conflict but to any other situation in which people of wealth and privilege are able to avoid unpleasant things to which less fortunate people are subjected. The song has been featured in countless films, commercials, and video games, most famously in "Forrest Gump" when Forrest and Bubba arrive via helicopter to a war zone in South Vietnam. It's also been covered numerous times, by everyone from Bob Seger and U2 to Wyclef Jean to the Foo Fighters and Death Cab for Cutie. The most ironic use of the song, however, was during a Donald Trump campaign rally. Apparently, Trump and his minions (not surprisingly) misinterpreted the point of the song, seeing as how Trump is the very epitome of the titular character against which Fogerty rails. While many protest songs and songs written during the Vietnam era have not aged well, "Fortunate Son" is still as powerful today as it was the day it was written.

There you have it - my tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band established their own, unique sound and niche. Their music didn't sound like anything else at the time and, even decades later, it still has an unmistakably distinctive feel. Thanks for reading!