Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXVIII--Creedence Clearwater Revival: Fortunate Son

Two minutes and twenty-one seconds--that's how long it took for this week's tune to lash out at class warfare in America with a resonance that extends to this day, maybe even more so.  And after seven months of an orange Nazi in the White House, it's brutally obvious that the hubris of the wealthy elite, as angrily expressed by a band that was one part Bruce Springsteen and one part The Who, hasn't alleviated one iota in the past fifty years.

Creedence Clearwater Revival formed in 1959 and bounced around the San Francisco Bay Area for several years before getting their first big break in 1967 when they were offered a studio recording opportunity--if only they'd change their name from The Golliwogs (probably a good career move).  They settled on Creedence Clearwater Revival (check the Wikipedia link--the name's origin is not as interesting as you might think), and the rest is history.  Led by lead vocalist and lead guitarist John Fogerty, over the next five years CCR would have five top ten singles and six top ten albums before it all came crashing down.  The band had an acrimonious break up (Fogerty's brother Tom left the band first, and the brothers never really reconciled, even before Tom's death in 1990), followed by years of lawsuits and Fogerty's refusal to play with the two still living bandmates at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and are one of the few bands to have never had a reunion.  Fogerty went on to some success as a solo artist, the other two band members (Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, not that most people really care) continue on as Creedence Clearwater Revisited.  Still, their legacy is as one of America's great rock and roll bands (Rolling Stone listed them as the 82nd best rock act of all time), and they are still a staple of FM album oriented rock radio (if there's still anyone who listens to FM radio).

Released on their LP Willy and the Poor Boys (great album title, by the way) in 1969, "Fortunate Son" was actually the B side of "Down on the Corner" (back in the day it wasn't unusual for record labels to release two sided singles) and would eventually reach #3 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  Its debut came at the height of Vietnam War protests and it was quickly adopted as an anti-war anthem (which it most certainly is) but I think that just calling it an anti-war anthem downplays its inherent theme of the rich getting richer while the poor shovel all of their shit.  Opening with thumping drums and an ominous guitar line, Fogerty literally tears the roof off the house with his fuck you vocals as he works his way through a series of scenes, each depicting the let them eat cake views of America's rich.  Fogerty saves the coup de grace for the chorus in which he lets it be known that he ain't like them, and unlike these fortunate sons, he's had to fight for what is his.  Much like Springsteen, CCR never lost sight of its working class roots, and the result was a masterpiece (#99 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time) of political vengeance--we ain't like rich folk and because we ain't, America is the better for it.

Fun Fact (Well, maybe not for you):  Outside of San Francisco radio (another hotbed of cool kids), the first radio station to play CCR in heavy rotation was WLS in Chicago...which just happens to be the station that was my introduction to rock and roll's top 40 in the mid 70's.  Fascinating, my God....

Lyric Sheet:  "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee