So many songs within the catalog of Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the songbook of John Fogerty, have continued to echo via the ages. However one which made its Billboard Scorching 100 debut on November 1, 1969 has not solely develop into outstanding amongst their signatures, however one of the crucial highly effective protest messages within the rock annals. It’s the eloquent and potent diatribe “Fortunate Son.”
The track was one half of the primary single from what was quickly to develop into CCR’s fourth studio LP within the area of simply 18 months, Willy and the Poor Boys. With out ever naming names in its evident anger, Fogerty’s lyric eloquently expressed the craze of the counter-culture of the time about America’s entanglement in Vietnam.
Wealthy males make conflict, poor males combat them
Greater than that, it railed at a political milieu wherein so lots of the nation’s younger males have been being dispatched to their demise (or in lots of different instances, as later grew to become clear, their psychological scarring), with little greater than lip service from Washington and past. “The song speaks more to the unfairness of class than war itself,” Fogerty mentioned later. “It’s the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them.”
“Fortunate Son” has continued to be a clarion name for social justice, however on the identical time it has been repeatedly misinterpreted. For instance, the track’s theme of privilege amongst these (born “silver spoon in hand”) who have been capable of go away the preventing to others was misappropriated by Donald Trump’s presidential marketing campaign group. His use of it at a 2020 rally so enraged Fogerty that he issued a stop and desist order, and an announcement wherein he mentioned Trump represented precisely the kind of person who the track had described within the first place.
With some irony, the composition grew to become the title of Fogerty’s 2015 autobiography, wherein he identified that though he wrote the quantity in simply 20 minutes, he had been having the ideas that knowledgeable it for 3 or 4 years. “With this kind of song, you’re carrying a weighty, difficult subject,” he wrote. “I didn’t want the song to be pulled down into that ‘Now we’re serious; everybody get quiet’ place. If I was going to write a quote unquote protest song, a serious song, I didn’t want it to be a lame song.”
Corridor of Fame recognition
The track was a double A-side with Creedence’s “Down On The Corner” single, which charted every week forward of it within the US and climbed to No.3. “Fortunate Son” peaked at No.14, however was later deservedly inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame.
Take heed to one of the best of Creedence Clearwater Revival on Apple Music and Spotify.
The highly effective mixture of message and power moved quite a few main artists to cowl it, on disc and/or on stage, comparable to U2, Pearl Jam, Bob Seger, and Bruce Springsteen. It’s been utilized in video video games like Name of Obligation, Battlefield 2, and Grand Theft Auto, and in motion pictures comparable to Forrest Gump. A new official video was created for the track in 2018 by director Ben Charge.
Fogerty himself revisited “Fortunate Son,” with Foo Fighters, as a robust lead-off for his 2013 all-star album of remakes, Wrote A Music For Everybody. For all its potential for being misinterpret, it does certainly stay a track for the on a regular basis man and girl.
Purchase or stream “Fortunate Son” on Willy and the Poor Boys.
