Robert Forster on Creedence Clearwater Revival

From his excellent collection of Music Journalism The Ten Rules of Rock and Roll. A very neatly phrased tribute to a great song. I have similar early childhood memories of listening to Creedence singles on my own parents' record player. Though for me it was Long As I Can See The Light  and Looking Out My Back Door.

 

'The merits of this song could have something to do with the circumstances of my first hearing it. In 1971, I convinced my parents to buy a record player. Before that, our house had little music save for the radio, which had increasingly caught my adolescent ear. My parents, with little knowledge of hi-fi and not much money, bought a blue-all-in-one player that was light enough to carry with one finger. It had little-to-no power and the sound was tinny and high. But it was mine, and I was thrilled.

 

Soon after, my father came home from work and presented me with a stack of worn and scratched 45s. "These are for you," he said. A colleague of his at work had a small part-time business in jukeboxes, and these records - my first - were the veritable workhorses sent out to graze after spending months or even years in service on jukeboxes in pubs and clubs around town.

 

 

I played all those that could still be played. Three stood out and they were all by Creedence Clearwater Revival: 'Green River', 'Who'll Stop The Rain' and 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain?' The last of these became my favourite. It was slower than the other two, and seemed to have a glory or majesty to its melody and lyric that went straight to my heart. But beyond the genius of the song, it was the voice of its singer (and songwriter), John Fogerty, that really got to me. It had a size and force that took up all the space coming out of those tiny speakers. I was enthralled by it and would spend hours playing the record over and over again, digging the rasp, the croon, the side-of-the-mouth joy of his singing.

 

Listening to the record now, I hear the band more. The drummer, Doug Clifford and the bassist, Stu Cook, especially. What a rhythm section! They are high in the mix, bedrocking everything Fogerty has put into the song. Clifford is strong and steady, with great fills and accents around the chorus; Cook is warm and melodic. It's a surprisingly stripped-back sound, letting bass and drums lead, with all other instrumentation around the edges. And of course there's Fogerty. I love him as always, but I hear him in the picture - one part of the band.

 

And I remember the 13-year-old boy enthralled by this record, pretending that this lion's roar of a voice was coming out of my own throat. "I want to know," I'd sing, "have you ever seen the rain, comin' down on a sunny day?"

 

 

Here's R.E.M. doing a well-judged version of the same song. It might have been written for them as Michael Stipe comments before they play it.