Creedence Clearwater Revival: C or D?

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I wouldn't mind replacing "Midnight Rambler" and "Love in Vain" with their respective versions on Ya-Yas, actually.

Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 2 February 2003 08:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've come to like the album version of Midnight Rambler more because it's slightly subdued. There's a certain spookiness that the full-on ball-sout live versions don't have, more space in the music. (The live versions are how CCR would have done it, chooglin', but they could never have done the album version). And Love in Vain really swings on the album, which I also didn't realize for a long time. Aside from I think Let It Bleed has their most consistent songwriting, I also love the sound--it has some of that graininess that Beggars Banquet has, but there's also something else I can't quite put my finger on, a sort of eerieness hovering in the background.

Ben WIlliams, Sunday, 2 February 2003 15:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

um, just listening to my dad's CCR mp3s & my assumption about what I thought of them - Says Nothing To Me About My Life + somewhere between exotic & grotesque (I haven't seen Disney's Song of the South but that sort of faded (anti)quaint(ed) disturbing etcetera viiibe) (or I'm too young).

(haha & maybe I've been reading too much Curnow & Brasch lately, but while not taking geography-as-destiny (or geography-as-haunting) too seriously, all the NZ rawkundroll fans I know have spent far more time around the otago/cantebury plains than I have).

Ess Kay (esskay), Monday, 3 February 2003 02:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

put on "Born on the Bayou" in your car v v loud while you're moving, it sounds really good (the other albums might too, but that's the only one i have)

are you saying your assumption about them was true?

Curnow & Brasch = ?

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 3 February 2003 02:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

I listened to Willy the other day. Two filler instrumentals ("Poorboy Shuffle," "Side O' the Road), one po-faced cover ("Cotton Fields") and one failed attempt at moodiness ("Effigy") to set against one decent cover ("Midnight Special," it's the way he sings it), one original that sounds like a cover ("Don't Look Now," this is a compliment), one successful attempt at moodiness ("Feelin' Blue") and one amusing spoof of country backwardness ("It Came Out of the Sky," maybe the only time he had fun with it?)

Ben Williams, Monday, 3 February 2003 14:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

(Not including the singles, which are of course great, though come to think of it "Down on the Corner" is kind of hokey)

Ben Williams, Monday, 3 February 2003 14:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm curious what people mean when they say CCR was "sexless". Is the implication that the band was unattractive sexually? Or that they were not suggestive of sex? Or that they in fact did not have sex? I see nothing to suggest that. As far as I can tell, Fogerty and co. exuded a typically masculine image. So is the implication that their music is "sexless"? What does that mean exactly? Apart from the well-known (on ILM at least) example of "feminized noise", how exactly can music be "sexed"? Or does it simply mean, that with a few notable exceptions (for example, "Suzie Q"), they rarely sang about sexual matters? If it's the last, then I think this criticism misses the point. CCR were aiming to evoke an objective, universal Americana, of the kind typified in traditional folk songs. Sex as a topic is necessarily subjective. How many traditional folk songs are about sex? Few, if any. Love, yes - but not sex. So it followed naturally from their artistic aims that they would have few songs about sex. To criticize them for this is to apply a subjective aesthetic that is foreign to their approach.

o. nate (onate), Monday, 3 February 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

two weeks pass...
Sexless as in not sexy, not exuding any sexual tension (lyric content not relevant to this, I don't think; Elvis was sexy singing "In the Ghetto").

"Subjective" is no good as a synonym for "value-laden." As a matter of fact it's no good as a word, period. (Nor is its twin "objective. Ban 'em both!)

Tracer: there are all sorts of ways to use the word "folk," but if you're using it anthropologically (folkways, folklore), I can't think of any other songs in modern America that are as folk as Xmas Carols, except maybe for "Happy Birthday" and "Rock 'N' Roll Part 2."

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

Is the National Anthem folk?

gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

Don't know. I have to call my anthropologist and ask.

Zeppelin doesn't strike me as dated, while Hendrix and Cream and CCR do, though I don't have a quick explanation why. Punk and hair metal helped to switch the game again, maybe knocking Hendrix and Cream into the past, but since Stones-based punks like the Stooges, Dolls, and Pistols had all absorbed Clapton-Hendrix-Kaukonen guitar sustain, their changing the game didn't bring Stones '70 back to seeming retrospectively modern. (And the Stones themselves transformed from a song band to a groove band, though I don't think they pulled this off thoroughly until Emotional Rescue.) If "Brown Sugar" sounds not-so-dated now, this is because its style of riffing has a life in new country (though it hadn't back in the day). "Brown Sugar" is all over the place in recent Brooks & Dunn. Strangely, given that CCR was admired so much in country land, CCR doesn't live in modern country, while Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels, and the Eagles all do.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

By the way, I like CCR a lot, but I don't play them much.

They were both of and not of the counterculture, which was one of the interesting things about them.

Mark, I still doubt that the term "rockist" helps people to communicate or think through their ideas, but I won't make that argument here. I want to point out, though, that in using "rockist," Shakey is raising the question as to whether it's rockist to like Creedence now, not whether Creedence was rockist back in their day. For instance, staking one's allegiance to the Ramones makes you butt-plug reactionary now but didn't in 1977, at least didn't for most people. Depends how you deployed your allegiance to the band. Note, that there's a difference between liking the Ramones and staking your allegiance to them. I still like 'em. I think.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

And even now it depends on what you do with your allegiance. (E.g., not impossible that Eminem listened to a lot of Ramones and got persona manipulation ideas from them, but that doesn't make him close to "rockism.")

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

They were both of and not of the counterculture, which was one of the interesting things about them.

Funny that you mention this, 'cause I was thinking the same thing after I re-read my comment about "Lodi" after this thread sprang back to life. That tension -- being both of and not of the counterculture -- is what makes that (and other) CCR songs work. Lyrically, it's about the American Dream -- staking out on yer own to "make it," the singer working hard for and having "success" dangled in front of him. Musically (at least at the beginning), it's meat-and-potatoes American rock (or CCR-type "chooglin'"). Then comes the last verse, with the key change and the singer's epiphany that his version of the "American Dream" might be being stuck in shitty bars sinking to drunks for the rest of his life. At least to me, it seems very much of its time -- a counter-cultural Sixties twist on a common American archetype which may still resonate because of its craft and sublety, but also because of how cynical we've become since the Sixties.

my two cents anyway.

Tad (llamasfur), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

Wow--some strange and groovy takes on American music up the thread.

Hendrix, "dated"? I don't think it's ever going to date, that stuff is as audacious as the day he made it. I've come to the conclusion that, as much as I like rock and roll, and as instinctively hostile I can be toward "rockism" or whatever you call it, Hendrix is in a whole different class than anybody else who ever made "rock." I'm sure this opinion is not shared by everyone.

CCR, though...it is stiff, stiff. Bad rhythm section. Mechanical. Great songs performed with a kind of caution, a really bad reverence for some "past" which consistently hobbles the whole project. Ben Williams up the thread hit it, "Let it Bleed" contains some "eerie" moments where the bullshit of Jagger's lyrics sorta gets hijacked by something altogether more mystical...as in the slide-guitar/piano/vibes bit in "Monkey Man." Which is all Keith. Whereas CCR never once hit a note like that.

That said, I still kind of like them, as superior radio music, and I think "Willy and the Poor Boys" is a fine record, I always liked "Effigy." I mean explain to me how "Effigy" is all that different from "Mod Lang" or something...once you get past the limberness of the Big Star rhythm section and the stiffness of CCR's. But the basic conception is similar...

So, a classic, but even more dated than the Band, who had some of the same problems of over-thinking everything and self-conscious mythologizing...the Band were far superior musicians, and they sounded like they had been having a better time out on the road than CCR had...

frank p. jones (frank p. jones), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 13:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

No, they never improved on (or equaled) Mystery Train. But my ill-informed instincts say Elvis wouldn't have known to sing Lodi like Fogerty did, and wouldn't have done Fortunate Son, period.
-- gabbneb


Dan Penn does "Lodi" on his early '70s "Nobody's Fool" album, quite well.

frank p. jones (frank p. jones), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 13:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

Christmas Carols are "folk music" almost certainly, but they've become static and by themselves are almost empty. Lullabyes are similar. You can fill them up with whatever memories you've got of the other times you've sung them. You can sing them with a folk attitude - an irreverance that fills up the meaning based on contingencies; making them "the news" like hip hop does with the empty skeletons of today's pop songs; for instance my family always does ALL the verses of Good King Wenceslas because we're convinced that it's basically a socialist manifesto, and we roll our eyes when it's not done this way, convinced that the organizers are in league with the Republicans (of course this attitude, too, has become traditional and ossified in its own way with us, but you see what I mean) - or you can sing them with an uncomplicated reverence. I think the Band leaned more towards the latter, and CCR the former, but it's just a feeling, really.

If we had football chants in America they'd probably be the ultimate successful example of folk attitude in this country. The Pinefox mentioned on a war thread that he feels the art of chanting is DOA. Maybe he could expand on that here? I think if he's right it has serious implications for democracy!

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 17:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

(i mean, if we can't master the dynamics of group chanting, how can we be expected to seize the reins of power? just a question. i doubt the Pinefox meant his pronouncement to be read so dramatically)

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 18:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

incidentally, search if you can the Puncture w/Creedence (or at least Fogerty) on the cover and appreciations by Camden Joy (reprinted in Lost Joy, TNI Books) and especially Jay Ruttenberg

M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 18:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sexless as in not sexy, not exuding any sexual tension (lyric content not relevant to this, I don't think; Elvis was sexy singing "In the Ghetto").

I don't see how "sexy" by this definition is different from "makes me think about sex" - and as such it seems to be necessarily observer-dependent, ie., different strokes for different folks. For example, if I was to say that I don't find Elvis "sexy", how would you argue that I was wrong?

o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

I dig the "stiff" rhythm section. Always (at the best moments at least) makes me think of a sorta appalachian-kraut-boogie. "Bootleg" is a tight, tight song that I don't think has been mentioned yet, and a good example of what I'm spoutin.

And CCR did have an influence on mid-late 80s Seattle. Mark Arm and some pre-Pearl Jam dudes had that band Green River. And didn't the early incarnation of Nirvana do CCR covers? Or at least Kurt claimed to have played in a CCR cover band. Something like that.

andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 20:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mark - I like the way you describe their relationship to the greater rock counterculture (don't think "rockist" a good synonym for allegiance in 1969 to the greater rock counterculture, however), but their not second-guessing the future isn't what distinguishes them from the counterculture. A lot of '60s ra-ra went even further - and furthur! - in trying to exclude the future: happenings, fluxus, acid tests, live for today, etc., the art of living replacing the creation of artifacts. Hard especially to think of Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia (or even Clapton in his in-concert improvisations) giving much thought to outguessing the future. One reason that Stones records "last" better than the Dead's is that the Stones paid a lot more attention to what was going down on tape.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 23:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

I dig the "stiff" rhythm section. Always (at the best moments at least) makes me think of a sorta appalachian-kraut-boogie. "Bootleg" is a tight, tight song that I don't think has been mentioned yet, and a good example of what I'm spoutin.

Andrew M., that is some interesting, uhmm, but have you ever been to "Appalachia" (pronounced correctly it rhymes with "appa-latch-a," not "appa-laytchi-a")? CCR has zero to do with any of that. They from California, man, and that's a long, long way from E. Ky./Tenn./W. Va., not to mention fucking Germany...personally, I used to dig Can when I was driving across, say, *Arkansas*, but otherwise, it's a bit honky for my taste...stiil, Applachian-Kraut boogie is a funny idea, someone out there in I Love Music-Land fire up the 4-track, we gonna have a part-ee!!

frank p. jones (frank p. jones), Wednesday, 19 February 2003 02:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...

Fogerty's a bit of an odd bird, isn't he? His words and behavior show the same
strange, doomed obsessiveness that inform his jeremiad-like songs. Crack
guitarist though; he knows how to massage those strings just right. Sure,
he's trying to imitate rockabilly pickers like Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore,
but he also has a fluidity and grace comparable with the great rockers:
Clapton, Page, and dare I say, Hendrix. In truth, his soloing ranks
far below masterful, but his songwriting, arrangement, and multi-instrumental
skills (he always plays his own keyboards and horns) outshine any other
figure I can think of. CCR may not have been the American Beatles,
but the Beatles were four stellar talents. Fogerty had to work with a very
limited group of bashers.

Lest I sound like an overly gushing fanboy, I'll admit that his solo albums have
been VERY inconsistent. The best songs are great, but nearly all of it sounds
like unecessary backtracking. Of course, it's hard to keep writing great songs
when you only release an average of 10 new songs per decade. These
things take practice.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 05:08 (twenty years ago) link

Fogerty has probably the coolest voice that rock has ever seen.

Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 05:28 (twenty years ago) link

I bought one of the singles/greatest hits comps recently. Something about growing up where and when I did (or at least w/ my ex-hippie-redneck father), I was so overexposed to ZZ Top/Skynrd/CCR/Allman Bros. that I've never been able to pay attention to them.

I was surprised at how much I still loved some tracks (good god "Fortunate Son" might be the most ferocious song of the Vietnam era), but so many kind of filtered out into blandness. I really wanted to like it/them more than I do.

miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 05:50 (twenty years ago) link

I'm a bit tired of VOL. 1 of the greatest hits. You need to
start listening to VOL. 2 and digging soulseek for album tracks,
like Ramble Tamble, Chameleon, and Penthouse Pauper.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 15:44 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and Effigy, possibly his creepiest apocalyptic dirge.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 15:45 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and believe it or not, Milo, his live version of "Fortunate
Son," from just a few years ago, is even more ferocious than
the original.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 15:48 (twenty years ago) link

There are a ton of hidden gems on the albums that paint a much fuller picture of Fogerty's range than just the Greatest Hits. Ramble Tamble, Rude Awakening #2, Penthouse Pauper, Tombstone Shadow, Wrote a Song for Everyone... actually the entire Green River album is amazing from start to finish.

Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:06 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and believe it or not, Milo, his live version of "Fortunate
Son," from just a few years ago, is even more ferocious than
the original.

more info plz

gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:17 (twenty years ago) link

It's on his _Premonition_ CD. He plays it at a noticably faster
tempo than the studio version, and his voice is rawer than
ever.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:34 (twenty years ago) link

Classic, sure. "Willy and Poorboys" is a great LP--"It Came out of the Sky" and of course "Effigy," which I think is their greatest moment.

That said, I find them incredibly boring and samey. There's something so mechanical about them, and JF's voice grates. Prototype of all the back-to-roots groups (the Band too, of course), and they lack the glamour I need from rock and roll. I know, I know--they weren't after glamour.

When something like "Fortunate Son" comes on the radio, I dig; but they're a group (I feel the same way about REM) whose records I don't own any more and have no desire to play. Nice on the radio. Fogerty's solo records are horrendous, I have always hated "Center Field" with a passion, what a stupid song. But sure, classic. And no way are they a patch on the Stones, give me a break.

chesteraburnett (ddduncan), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 22:19 (twenty years ago) link

What the... "Centerfield" equals anything he released in the 60s/70s.
And they're probably samey only because you're heard them a million
times. What I wouldn't give to have been around when these classics
first hit.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 23:11 (twenty years ago) link

Stu, Doug, Tom and John. Hey, I can still remember their names. I can't say the same for more than a dozen or so other bands.

SP: They were crankin' back in the day, I can attest.

jim wentworth (wench), Thursday, 29 April 2004 00:44 (twenty years ago) link

"Centerfield" is a beer commercial.

coach (ddduncan), Thursday, 29 April 2004 01:14 (twenty years ago) link

i don't mind "centerfield", it's pretty sad when you think about it

gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 29 April 2004 04:35 (twenty years ago) link

Sure it is. It's about the damn bench warmer, just sitting there
dreaming about his "moment in the sun."

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Thursday, 29 April 2004 04:41 (twenty years ago) link

The Stones would have probably surpassed CCR if they hadn't included so many ballads. Sure, some of them were really great, but there were just too damn many.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Thursday, 29 April 2004 04:44 (twenty years ago) link

two months pass...
I just want to say that I really admire Tracer Hand for his seriousness and thoughtfulness and insight.

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 23 July 2004 04:04 (twenty years ago) link

Total dud.

djdee2005, Friday, 23 July 2004 05:22 (twenty years ago) link

I'm kidding, absolute classic obv.

djdee2005, Friday, 23 July 2004 05:22 (twenty years ago) link

the fact that "fortunate son" is on heavy rotation on every classic-rock station in america and there's STILL a good chance that we're going to reelect george w. bush really puts the last nail in the coffin of that "...the city shakes" canard. doesn't it?

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 23 July 2004 06:16 (twenty years ago) link

when i hear songs like "fortunate son"/"who'll stop the rain"/"someday never comes"/"lodi"/etc. my admiration and awe is mixed with a sense that no one in their 20s should be able to write songs like this--not for their greatness or "sophistication" or anything like that but for their bitterness and remorse and moral clarity and lack of sentiment. i can't help thinking that fogerty paid some kind of psychic price (or had already paid it) for his insight, which might explain why he seems to have burned out (as a songwriter at least) rather quickly after he reached success.

amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 23 July 2004 06:24 (twenty years ago) link

Is this a joke?!

Rock music: C or D?
Music: C or D?
Sex: C or D?
Oxygen: C or D?


Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 23 July 2004 06:58 (twenty years ago) link

"Bad Moon Rising" and "Lookin' Out My Back Door" made the 6-year old me bounce all around the living room and the back seat of the car (safety belts weren't mandatory back then), and I was a fan from then on. Spent a coupla years as a sullen teen resenting them and trying to dislike 'em (just 'cause they were my dad's favourite band), but resistance was futile. And so what if my dad was a fan - my octogenarian grampa liked 'em too! (Incidentally, the old guy also liked Dire Straits and even ZZ Top! RIP)

Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 23 July 2004 07:38 (twenty years ago) link

six years pass...

I was just listening to the debut w/ a bonus track "Call It Pretending", & learned that their first single was "Porterville" / "Call It Pretending". It occurs to me that those are amongst the band's most ~~60s-ish~~ songs, the former with SF-style backup vocals, the latter a Motown rip. I know it sounds silly to say that a 60s band sounded 60s-ish, esp. one featured in every movie about the 60s ever, but CCR always seemed more futuristic to me in their concision & stripped-down sound. But this single, both sides, isn't like that. "Call It Pretending", the more I think about it, would have been a good Stones cut in 1966, which is what I mean when I say it sounds 60s---Jagger & co wouldn't have tried to pull that off in 1972.

Euler, Sunday, 30 January 2011 21:22 (thirteen years ago) link

but CCR always seemed more futuristic to me in their concision & stripped-down sound

I know what you mean, insofar as there was no one else who really sounded like them in '68 and '69. (There's never been anyone who really sounds like them, actually, even if stuff like "Long Cool Woman" tried to.) I'm not sure if they were pointing the way to the future, or if they had just reached back so far that it seemed like they were. In general, moving towards a stripped-down sound was common in '68: The White Album, Beggars Banquet, John Wesley Harding, etc. I don't really have a point here. I don't have their first album, either, but I'm going to see if I can find the two songs you mention on Grooveshark. Seems to me I know "Porterville" from somewhere.

clemenza, Sunday, 30 January 2011 23:07 (thirteen years ago) link

Yeah--"Call It Pretending" is really good, and totally atypical. It's got a little bit of "Out of Time" in it.

clemenza, Sunday, 30 January 2011 23:12 (thirteen years ago) link

Yeah, "Out of Time"s a good comparison; for "Porterville" it's like a Dead song circa 66, out of time indeed.

The debut's really pretty light (in a good way!) compared to where they'd go next, into swampy doom. And it's interesting how Chronicle recontextualizes the songs from the debut ("Suzy Q" & "I Put A Spell On You"): they fit well there, more swampy doom. But the debut is overall more of a mishmash, more bluesy than the later records; which makes sense given its provenance from pre-CCR bands (Golliwogs mostly).

Euler, Sunday, 30 January 2011 23:27 (thirteen years ago) link

three months pass...

heard creedence everywhere i went yesterday. there literally is no music more omnipresent than CCR. ~science~

tylerw, Monday, 23 May 2011 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link


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