Fortunate Son
If only Creedence Clearwater Revival had been on Columbia instead of Fantasy.
Not even WB. That was the difference between the Big Red Machine and the laid back L.A. posse. New York had a scorched earth policy. Columbia sold the record to everybody who might have an interest. By time they were done, the album had been wrung dry. Whereas Warner left some money on the table. The public was not harangued. You could still discover artists years later. Which is why Warner’s catalogue is so damn valuable.
But those Creedence songs were irresistible. You couldn’t hold them back. You heard them once on the radio and you had to hear them again and again. You didn’t discover a Creedence song, the band assaulted you, demanded your attention.
The true breakthrough was "Proud Mary". Where are these changes on the radio today? You’ve got beats, but no legendary riffs. We were rollin’ on the river for months. I had to buy the album. Fell in love with the album opener, "Born On A Bayou". Do you know "Born On A Bayou"?
You don’t put on your fuck me pumps and go down to the club. You’re wearing your grubby jeans. It’s dark, but you’re sitting on the floor, or lying on your bed. The music doesn’t bounce off of you, it infects you.
Creedence dominated for years, and then the band disappeared. John Fogerty went solo. Dropped out. Came back. Was sued by Saul Zaentz, had a baseball anthem and became a footnote. But then you saw him live… This guy’s still got it. I love Springsteen, but I’m sure Bruce wishes he could write with such economy, such imagery. John Fogerty is a true American musical hero. But his whole career has been tainted by being on Fantasy Records.
Some folks are born made to wave the flag
I remember the reverb speaker in the back of Stanton’s GTO, pounding out the guitar lick of "Fortunate Son" when his brother took me and two other friends skiing at Hunter Mountain in November ’69. This was the sound of the Beatles’ "I Feel Fine", but AMERICANIZED! It stung like a Taser. You heard it every day, but "Fortunate Son" was never friendly, it never coddled up to you, rather it INTIMIDATED YOU!
And we think we know tracks, and then we find out we don’t really understand them until years later. When suddenly the song comes clear.
I was hiking long after dark with my iPod on shuffle. It was one of those nights when nothing sounds good. When you keep yourself from pushing fast-forward to the next track because you feel you’ll run through every cut on your iPod, nothing will satisfy you. You force yourself to listen all the way through, hoping your mind will be set free. Still, nothing resonated. Until I heard Donavon Frankenreiter’s "Fortunate Son".
Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue
And when the band plays ‘Hail To The Chief’
They point the cannon right at you
Creedence might have been from the Bay Area, but they were never hip, they didn’t have the proper antiwar credentials. But, Fogerty and his band just didn’t do drugs and remove themselves, they got in your face. In 1969, it was Un-American to support the government and its war effort. Certainly if you were under twenty five. Fogerty was speaking up in public, and his song was so damn good that no one could castigate him, he couldn’t be Dixie Chicked.
But in Donavon’s version, there’s no anger, there’s no attitude. And stripped down you hear the song’s alienation. This wasn’t a celebrity, this was a musician. Complaining that not only did he not understand, he didn’t fit in, he felt removed.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no senator’s son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I’m no fortunate one
John Fogerty didn’t make the scene. He was too fucked up an individual to do that. Great artists are tortured. It’s a rare bird with musical talent who fits in, who’s part of the mainstream. The social butterflies are usually hacks. True talents wouldn’t know what to say, they can’t make small talk. They can only speak the truth. It’s like Fogerty opened a vein, and what came out was unfiltered.
He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in hand. He ain’t no millionaire’s son. He wasn’t a lying sack of shit, cheating on his taxes. He was playing it straight up the middle, the hard way. A regular American. But with no safety net.
Detroit titans say they’ll work for a dollar. What they don’t say is they want incredible stock options. Fail as an artist and you have to work at the 7-11, if you can get there on time.
It ain’t me. That’s what the artists used to say.
I’m listening to this Donavon Frankenreiter version and that’s what I’m thinking. It ain’t me. I ain’t no millionaire. We may have a new President, but that’s not a game I play. The "New York Times" exposed how Rahm Emanuel made his bucks
In today’s world the businessmen/politicos cut corners and wink and get away with it. They’re famous for nothing, but they act like stars. Today if you’ve got money you’re a star, that’s what the tabloids say. Talent? That rarely comes into the equation.
Do you know how hard it is to write a song as good as "Fortunate Son"? So hard that John Fogerty is still struggling to equal it. So hard most people can’t sing the top ten, if they even know what the songs are. But "Fortunate Son" was ubiquitous, everybody heard it. Michael Phelps just had to train incessantly. John Fogerty, all great artists have to start from scratch. And even if they succeed, even if they climb the mountaintop, their lives don’t work. Why do you think so many of them OD?
