The Creedence Clearwater Revival Revival
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Plus that opening… could recognize it in an instant.
First, Reagan only referred to Springsteen as a hopeful songwriter in a speech on the campaign trail, and that was about it, since Springsteen didn't authorize use of the song on the trail. It should also be noted that the incident came in the context of a presidential campaign ('84) in which Reagan likely would've gotten reelected doing anything short of using the Soviet national anthem in his ads. Second, "Born in the USA" wasn't critical of Reagan (or Reagan-like figures) specifically.
Meanwhile, Trump used the song without asking (of course) and received a cease-and-desist, in the context of a very close election campaign, and as a "Fortunate Son" that dodged the draft for the exact war the song was written about.
Was he a "Fortunate Son" during the 2016 election, with all of the establishment Republican party, 90% of the media, big tech etc against him? It's arguable that he was not.
You’re buying into an underdog narrative that doesn't match with the facts. Also the media may have been “against” him but they gave him thousands of hours of free coverage. “Big tech” may have been against him, but they handed him his platform in the first place.
Agreed, but it's all relative :-) Would have been more or less favoured than Jeb Bush, for instance?
>> "Big tech” may have been against him, but they handed him his platform in the first place.
They definitely ripped that back off him.
The music from that era seems timeless like almost nothing else after it. I love early 2000's Pop and Hip Hop but that's soley because I grew up during that time and it's very nostalgic. With CCR, Hendrix and others, the music is just really damn good and truly timeless IMO.
I feel similarly about the quality (don't know what else to call it) of the many songs I listen to from that time, compared to similarly popular songs over the past decades.
Though for me they're also nostalgic in a way which clouds my judgement: I was introduced to vast amounts by my dad in the 90s.
I do think there's some selection bias when we sample tunes that already ran through the filter of their time and 50 to 60 more years of collective filtering.
One group I still didn't know much about and I think many people still don't (paradoxically so) was the Beatles.
When I was 18, a friend lent me every album from Revolver through Abbey Road.
If you haven't listed to those all the way through, you may be in for a treat.
Also, if you want to hear an incredible modern artist's own version of a protest song, check out Sturgill Simpson's Sea Stories. Dude was in the navy and wrote it as part of a concept album dedicated to giving his first child life advice.
I remember FM radio in LA in the early 70s, there weren't really a lot of mediocre songs in the playlists. It wasn't just Classic Rock as we refer to it now, but a bunch of BB King and other blues artists, along with some of what you'd today call Country Rock.
But the "Country" Rock was Allman Brothers, CCR, The Band, and later ZZ Top, etc. The Blues were BB King, John Mayall, Hendricks, etc. The rock was Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, on and on. There was just so much that you didn't really need to fill out the playlists. And all of these bands were cranking out an Album a year in that 5-6 year period.
Do you think (remember) that the incentives for bands were different? I know people listened to more full albums because it'd be tedious otherwise, but was consuming music more of a dedicated activity than it is today?
If so, with record sales being viable income streams, it'd make sense why it'd optimize for more varied, blended, complex, and interesting listens (indexing on FM play for comparison; we're awash with incredible music elsewhere).
I enjoy some music for accompaniment or sing alongs, and then some as a captivating experience (like a movie or even more so a roller coaster).
The blues, jazz, and fusion scenes were vibrant as well and had the same _music as activity_ feature distinct from a dance floor. The audience is expected to actively respond mid song to leads and fills that were moving.
(I know I riffed on my own question but it's not intended to be rhetorical)
And as you mention, people used to hang out and listen to records together as a social activity. People cared about what they thought of as truth in music, so you would have arguments about Beck vs. Clapton vs. Hendricks from various standpoints, not just pure talent but honesty, faith to the material, etc.
Not to say that doesn’t happen today, people are still seeking that just as much, it’s just that the industry has changed to relagate music into just another form of “content” to market for ad revenue.
RIP George Martin, you gave us much.
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/john-fogerty-creedence-clear...
Interesting Fantasy Records' head Saul Zaentz isn't mentioned anywhere in the New Yorker article.
First, everyone loves Creedence and their music crosses the political spectrum big time. Fogerty might be a liberal Democrat but his music hits big with conservatives. This is where the more conservative approach in lyric writing the article points out works in their favor. CCR never really wrote a drug song except for maybe "Lookin Out My Back Door" and that is hardly explicit. "Fortunate Son" isn't anti-war by being against the war, its anti-war by pointing out the injustice of the elite, the powerful, and the decision makers of America not having to put their own children on the line and deal with the consequences of their decision to go to war with Vietnam. The love for CCR is so widespread that Donald Trump used "Fortunate Son" in a campaign rally, unaware of the irony considering he got out of the draft.
Second, most of their songs are pretty easy to pick up and play. And because of the first point, they're all crowd pleasers. I'm in my mid-20s and when I picked up the guitar some of the first songs I learned once I got my chords down were "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" and "Bad Moon Rising". Why? Because everyone knows those songs and my dad get a kick out of it.
Maybe Creedence Clearwater Revival will never hit the philosophical or virtuoso depths of some of its contemporaries, but there is enough substance there to not just be a generic commercial pop song. Yet they are simple and universal enough to enmesh themselves into our American culture.
On the other hand, you don't necessarily have to see something first hand in order to be able to channel its energy into art. There are plenty of great paintings based on secondhand descriptions of events and locations. Or consider the song "Country Roads"!
If you know the song you know what's gonna happen and you can't wait, but even then it's a delight: you know from the first downbeat it's got you, but seeing these kids light up and lose their minds over how good it is, that's something special.
It so doesn't matter that John Fogerty was singing a fantasy: real Southern kids connected to the reality of what Fogerty was doing, what he and the band were making. There's nothing inauthentic about 'Born On The Bayou'. It's made out of love and it's real and sincere. Maybe if you actually got born on the bayou you'd take it for granted and would never be able to express so deep a love, and you'd be singing about coding in silicon valley?
According to Wikipedia,
> Fogerty, however, has stated in interviews that the song was actually written for his then three-year-old son, Josh.
Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hopping' down the bunny trail
Hippity-hop, Easter's on the way
Bringing every girl and boy
Baskets full of Easter joy
Do do do lookin' out my back doorThey definitely have a southern sound...despite being from the Bay Area.
That is, a piece of music won’t “hit you” if the conditions aren’t right (you can’t hear the words, you’re not doing something that matches the song, you’re just not in the mood).
Ramble Tamble remains one of my most earliest memories listening to my dad play CCR's Cosmos Factory from a cassette tape as a kid, and still one of my favorite rock songs and albums.
I guess it's not unheard of. Dwight Yoakam is from Kentucky but made all his money doing Honky Tonk in Los Angeles of all places...
And almost everyone can recognize one or two tracks of them, even if they were born years after the dissolution.
I still love CCR. The bandleader seems to have been a dick though.
it's called musical stockholm syndrome.
Hot take:
One gets tired of them, in a way that you don't of John Mellencamp songs (came along slightly later, I know). In fact, if I ask which 70s male megastars still hold up (Tom Petty? Bruce Springsteen? Bob Seger?), Mellencamp is the only one.
There aren't too many songs that, after you've heard them a bazillion times, you're still up for one more. CCR hits are not those.
70s music that doesn't ever get old for me: First two sabbath albums Floyd until they went all experimental. Folksy john denver (as opposed to country)
I think the Mellencamp lyrics have a universality that's lacking in most rock, which is largely teen-age and young adult themes. I'm thinking especially about "Little Pink Houses."
He's a Midwestern boy. What can I say?
I knew this would happen, but I was hopin' not today.
So many things we know will happen eventually, but please, NOT today!
When did they get more experimental then their debut album "the piper at the gates of dawn"?
I think their early stuff (Piper, Saucer) had a structure of sorts, but it was kinda out there and probably only Syd really understood it
Ummagumma was throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, and by Meddle they started actually developing a marketable formula (I'd say Atom Heart Mother is somewhere in the middle)
Then after Dark Side, they started their real structure and had piles of success until Waters was myopic enough to kick out the only person in the band that mattered