‘Born on the Bayou’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival is a song about travelling that band member John Fogerty produced in 1969. Let’s travel within John Fogerty’s body of work and take a look at his most recent song.
Fogerty released ‘Weeping in the Promised Land’ in January 2021 while America struggled to get Trump to leave the Whitehouse. The song centres around a power-hungry Pharoah, a thinly-veiled metaphor for the president.
The writer of ‘Fortunate Son‘ is no stranger to protest songs, Fogerty has written concise lyrics that pull no punches. He stands up for Black Lives Matter and sings of Floyd George, “All the people are crying your last words, ‘I can’t breathe’“, and he calls Trump’s handling of the pandemic “shouting down the medicine man“.
The song, which is Fogerty’s first in eight years, is gospel-tinged. It originally featured his son on guitar before he decided to pair it down and produce it with only piano and backing singers. Fogerty is now 76 years old, but his voice seems to be going from strength to strength. The video features Fogerty playing the piano on a hilltop, with weathered farmers accusing and pleading silently, interspersed with clips from BLM protests. It is powerful stuff!
He might have travelled over fifty years, but John Fogerty, lyrically, has thankfully not moved at all.
