If only Creedence Clearwater Revival had been on Columbia instead of Fantasy.<\/p>\n
Not even WB.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the difference between the Big Red Machine and the laid back L.A. posse.\u00c2\u00a0 New York had a scorched earth policy. Columbia sold the record to everybody who might have an interest.\u00c2\u00a0 By time they were done, the album had been wrung dry.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Warner left some money on the table.\u00c2\u00a0 The public was not harangued.\u00c2\u00a0 You could still discover artists years later.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why Warner’s catalogue is so damn valuable.<\/p>\n
But those Creedence songs were irresistible.\u00c2\u00a0 You couldn’t hold them back.\u00c2\u00a0 You heard them once on the radio and you had to hear them again and again.\u00c2\u00a0 You didn’t discover a Creedence song, the band assaulted you, demanded your attention.<\/p>\n
The true breakthrough was "Proud Mary".\u00c2\u00a0 Where are these changes on the radio today?\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got beats, but no legendary riffs.\u00c2\u00a0 We were rollin’ on the river for months.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to buy the album.\u00c2\u00a0 Fell in love with the album opener, "Born On A Bayou".\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know "Born On A Bayou"?<\/p>\n
You don’t put on your fuck me pumps and go down to the club.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re wearing your grubby jeans.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s dark, but you’re sitting on the floor, or lying on your bed.\u00c2\u00a0 The music doesn’t bounce off of you, it infects you.<\/p>\n
Creedence dominated for years, and then the band disappeared.\u00c2\u00a0 John Fogerty went solo.\u00c2\u00a0 Dropped out.\u00c2\u00a0 Came back.\u00c2\u00a0 Was sued by Saul Zaentz, had a baseball anthem and became a footnote.\u00c2\u00a0 But then you saw him live…\u00c2\u00a0 This guy’s still got it.\u00c2\u00a0 I love Springsteen, but I’m sure Bruce wishes he could write with such economy, such imagery.\u00c2\u00a0 John Fogerty is a true American musical hero.\u00c2\u00a0 But his whole career has been tainted by being on Fantasy Records.<\/p>\n
Some folks are born made to wave the flag<\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the sound of the Beatles’ "I Feel Fine", but AMERICANIZED!\u00c2\u00a0 It stung like a Taser.\u00c2\u00a0 You heard it every day, but "Fortunate Son" was never friendly, it never coddled up to you, rather it INTIMIDATED YOU!<\/p>\n And we think we know tracks, and then we find out we don’t really understand them until years later.\u00c2\u00a0 When suddenly the song comes clear.<\/p>\n I was hiking long after dark with my iPod on shuffle.\u00c2\u00a0 It was one of those nights when nothing sounds good.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 You force yourself to listen all the way through, hoping your mind will be set free.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, nothing resonated.\u00c2\u00a0 Until I heard Donavon Frankenreiter’s "Fortunate Son".<\/p>\n Some folks are born made to wave the flag<\/span> Creedence might have been from the Bay Area, but they were never hip, they didn’t have the proper antiwar credentials.\u00c2\u00a0 But, Fogerty and his band just didn’t do drugs and remove themselves, they got in your face.\u00c2\u00a0 In 1969, it was Un-American to support the government and its war effort. Certainly if you were under twenty five.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n But in Donavon’s version, there’s no anger, there’s no attitude.\u00c2\u00a0 And stripped down you hear the song’s alienation.\u00c2\u00a0 This wasn’t a celebrity, this was a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 Complaining that not only did he not understand, he didn’t fit in, he felt removed. John Fogerty didn’t make the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 He was too fucked up an individual to do that.\u00c2\u00a0 Great artists are tortured.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a rare bird with musical talent who fits in, who’s part of the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 The social butterflies are usually hacks.\u00c2\u00a0 True talents wouldn’t know what to say, they can’t make small talk. They can only speak the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like Fogerty opened a vein, and what came out was unfiltered.<\/p>\n He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in hand.\u00c2\u00a0 He ain’t no millionaire’s son.\u00c2\u00a0 He wasn’t a lying sack of shit, cheating on his taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 He was playing it straight up the middle, the hard way.\u00c2\u00a0 A regular American.\u00c2\u00a0 But with no safety net.<\/p>\n Detroit titans say they’ll work for a dollar.\u00c2\u00a0 What they don’t say is they want incredible stock options.\u00c2\u00a0 Fail as an artist and you have to work at the 7-11, if you can get there on time.<\/p>\n It ain’t me.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the artists used to say.<\/p>\n I’m listening to this Donavon Frankenreiter version and that’s what I’m thinking.\u00c2\u00a0 It ain’t me.\u00c2\u00a0 I ain’t no millionaire.\u00c2\u00a0 We may have a new President, but that’s not a game I play.\u00c2\u00a0 The "New York Times" exposed how Rahm Emanuel made his bucks <\/p>\n
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue<\/span>
And when the band plays ‘Hail To The Chief’<\/span>
They point the cannon right at you<\/span><\/p>\n
It ain’t me, it ain’t me<\/span>
I ain’t no senator’s son<\/span>
It ain’t me, it ain’t me<\/span>
I’m no fortunate one<\/span><\/p>\n\n