THE STORY OF A SONG: Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" (1969)

With Proud Mary near the top of the charts, John Fogerty took Creedence Clearwater Revival back into the studio to record a new single, Bad Moon Rising. It was a dark song for dark times, with the Vietnam war raging and Richard Nixon in power—but all set to a bouncy, jangly beat; a vision of Doomsday with a smile. “The lyrics are thoroughly at odds with the joyous melody and tempo, [but] they perfectly capture the fine line between exhilaration and fear”, suggests Thomas Ryan. He also points up the sometimes-overlooked perfection of Creedence as a band, with the crisp economy of drummer Doug Clifford, bassist Stu Cook, and Tom Fogerty as rhythm guitarist alongside John’s lead. “There is nothing extraneous on a CCR record; every sound is integral”.

Fogerty designed Bad Moon Rising as an homage to Elvis Presley’s Sun Records sound, inspired particularly by Scotty Moore’s guitar licks. According to Fogerty, its imagery came from the 1941 movie The Devil and Daniel Webster, in which the devil protects Daniel Webster because of a deal they’d made. “There’s one great scene where there’s a huge storm, and the neighbor’s corn crop was completely knocked down. But next door . . . you can see Daniel Webster’s corn still standing tall in a straight row, six feet high. The contrast represented a very strong image for me. I took it in a Biblical sense, meaning hurricanes and lightning . . . Scary, spooky stuff”.

Craig Werner: “Sounding like something out of the Old Testament prophets, Fogerty’s poetic images tap a power similar to that of Robert Johnson’s classic Delta blues”.