The Aquarian imprimatur stamped upon the late sixties has always had its flip side. Not everybody was wearing a peace symbol or singing, “Come on people now/Smile on your brother/Everybody get together/And try to love one another right now.” The songs of urban dread of The Doors, the Manson Family murder spree, and Altamont all made it abundantly clear that not all was cool in the turned-on family of man. Call it the Satanic Element. And one of its chroniclers was that great but underrated band, Creedence Clearwater Revival. They sang of dark omens and of terrified flight; they were the dour prophets, as were The Doors, of the dark side of the era of peace, love, and music.
Of course, they had their lighter side—they’re the folks who gave us “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” and “Down on the Corner,” after all—but when I think of them I think of their darker tunes, the ones that evoke bad juju and ask apocalyptic questions. “Who’ll Stop the Rain” sang John Fogerty, and that rain wasn’t literal, it was the precipitation of negative vibes that had washed away the innocence of a generation. Ditto the rain that fell in “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” It was uncanny and foreboding, that rain falling on a sunny day.
I love Creedence, always have, in part because they were so humble; they were never sexy, never got their proper props—all they did was write succinct and timeless songs, sort of like Tom Petty has been doing for so long. From Fogerty’s harsh growl to the band’s disciplined approach to making music—no free-form jams for these guys—they were utterly distinctive, and there was no mistaking them for anybody else.
When it comes to product, I prefer their greatest hit collection At the Movies over Chronicle: 20 Greatest Hits because it eliminates some songs, such as “Sweet Hitch-Hiker,” “Long As I Can See the Light,” “I Put a Spell on You,” and “Someday Never Comes” that I’ve never cared for much. And At the Movies includes several cuts (“The Midnight Special,” “Keep On Chooglin’”) that I consider indispensible. Then again, 20 Greatest Hits includes “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and the great “Commotion,” so it’s all a big trade-off, isn’t it?
At the Movies opens with the wonderful “The Midnight Special,” which Fogerty infuses with more soul than the Johnny Rivers’ original. Starts slow, just Fogerty and his guitar, then the whole band comes in for the chorus and picks up the pace from there. The drumming’s solid, no frills stuff, and that’s more or less the band’s template: the bottom is solid as a rock, all the better to accentuate Fogerty’s vocals and guitar playing. I may as well admit now that I’ve never been a big fan of “Proud Mary”; it chugs along and that’s good, but once you’ve heard Ike and Tina Turner flip it over and spank it, the Creedence version sounds downright staid—it lacks soul. Still listen to it when it comes on the radio, though. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is a marvel; Creedence takes the great Marvin Gaye tune and turns it into an extended and soulful exploration of the mesmeric possibilities of the electric guitar. I don’t think Fogerty even got his proper props as a guitarist; he’s not flashy, he doesn’t blow you way, he just plays subtle little improvisations on the melody, and by doing so worms his way into your skull. Meanwhile the drummer crashes away at the cymbals, less playing them than mugging them in broad daylight.
“Bad Moon Rising” is likely the best song ever written about the traumatic death of the Age of Aquarius, a masterpiece of dark prophecy and dread. Although it’s easy to miss the fact because the melody is so jaunty. But the words coming out of Fogerty’s mouth! “Don’t go round tonight/Well, it’s bound to take your life/There’s a bad moon on the rise.” He hopes you’ve “got your things together” and are “quite prepared to die,” which hardly sounds promising, nor does his prediction that the end is coming soon. “Keep on Chooglin’” is a bloozy tune that features Fogarty in great voice playing a tremendous guitar. This is one you don’t hear much, but his frenetic guitar playing—he’s razor sharp and that razor cuts—is out of this world, as is his harmonica solo. Now if I just knew what “chooglin’” is, I’d be set. “Who’ll Stop the Rain” boasts an unforgettable melody and a cool guitar riff and is an almost mythical treatment of the dark side of the human existence: “Long as I remember/The rain been coming down,” sings Fogerty, trying to find the sun, but the rain keeps coming down, and the tune has the feeling of a biblical flood, with no Ark in sight.
“Fortunate Son” is a classic and perhaps the best song ever written about the Vietnam War and its inequalities; to a cool pounding beat and excellent guitar riff Fogarty bemoans the fact that it’s the folks with no money who are doing the dying. Fogarty derides hypocrites and patriots (Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”) with the lines “Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes/Ooh they send you down to war, Lord” and “Some folks are born made to wave the flag/Ooh, they’re red, white and blue/And when the band plays “Hail to the Chief”/Ooo, they point the cannon at you, Lord.” Follow-ups “Hey Tonight” (with its great guitar riff), the joyous “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” (a piece of uncharacteristic country-rock surrealism), and “Up Around the Bend” are all timeless classics, but only the last named has a dark side, with its rising wind and its sinking ship.
CCR’s cover of Dale Hawkins’ 1957 hit “Susie Q.” drops the original’s truly unique percussion and rockabilly guitar in favor of a steady as she goes rendition, complete with some of the coolest guitar Fogarty ever played. His decision to manipulate his vocals in the second verse is a good one, as are those spooky backing vocals, and to all you Stones fans who prefer their 1964 cover all I can say is you have been sadly misled. As for “Born on the Bayou,” I happen to think it’s the best song Creedence ever recorded. Fogarty outdoes himself in the vocal department, the drumming is great, and if ever there was a song that evokes pure dread, it’s this one. This is the flip side of “Proud Mary”; the bayou is a dark and foreboding place, where your dogs might chase down a hoodoo or you might vanish without a trace. And that guitar! Fuzzed out and mean as a voodoo queen, it perfectly complements Fogerty’s tremendous vocals. Finally, there’s “Run Through the Jungle,” which opens with some apocalyptic feedback and then transports you to the jungle, presumably of Vietnam, and Fogarty’s recommendation is to “Run through the jungle/Whoa don’t look back to see.” The melody is ghostly, the lyrics frightening, and the harmonica works perfectly, and speaking just for myself I always wished they’d stretched this one out the way they do “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”
Song for song I’ll put Creedence up against most of the bands of their era; their greatest hits compilations speak for themselves. They wrote songs, concise songs that still sound great on the radio, where they will be played as long as there is radio. But most importantly their R&B-based rock’n’roll became the backing track for anyone allergic to the anodyne hippie dippie anthems of the time. They saw the dark portents and they sang about them, when bands like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were hawking hippie bullshit like “Almost Cut My Hair.” Which alone makes Creedence a great band. They kept a beat, and they kept it real, so come on people now, smile on your brother—just don’t trust the motherfucker with your life, and stay out of the bayou.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
