Why Creedence Clearwater Revival Remains the Definitive Band of Its Era

The entire Creedence body of work was released at the height of the Vietnam War, 1968 to 1972. There were other artists that, of course, were incredibly meaningful to soldiers over there. Some of them were just known by first names, whether it was Aretha or Marvin. But those artists were known quantities. There were a lot of soldiers, one of whom I profile in one of the chapters, who discovered Creedence while they were in Vietnam at the worst part of the war.

On top of that, Creedence was certainly thinking about it, because John and Doug had both served in the Reserves, and lived with the threat of service in Vietnam hanging over their heads. They addressed that, often obliquely, in their songs, but it felt very direct. A song like “Fortunate Sun” or “Run Through the Jungle” doesn’t mention Vietnam explicitly, but you have to imagine what an incredible gut punch that would register as to a person who was over there.

These are songs with very heavy lyrical overtones, but that can also fire a person up. There was a story I read about a group of soldiers playing “Bad Moon Rising” to prepare to go into battle. That’s the song with the lyric “hope you’re quite prepared to die.” With all respect to other artists at that time, I don’t think anyone was writing songs with that degree of directness. On top of that, they were a heavy rock band that wore their Black influences heavily as well.

As the Golliwogs, they played for soldiers who were being shipped out.

That’s an amazing detail, isn’t it? I couldn’t believe that when I heard it. The fact that they were in the Bay Area meant that there were tons of military installations nearby. And the fact that the war was starting up meant that there were tons of young men needing to be entertained, or perhaps needing to be distracted, right before they were shipped off to a war in Asia. Hundreds of thousands of young men went through the Bay Area bases on their way over there.

There were young men who saw the Golliwogs perform and then heard Creedence, and maybe didn’t even put it together that they were the same band doing those military shows in ‘65, ‘66. They were a different kind of group, and they obviously weren’t playing “Fortunate Son,” or the songs that made them famous. Just that continuity is an amazing thing. They just had so many different ways of developing a closeness and an identification with that era and with that conflict in particular. 

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