For an extended portion of his life, John Fogerty was unable to look back upon his time with Creedence Clearwater Revival without his body being filled with rage. The legal battles that ensued following their split were a tough pill to swallow for Fogerty, and for many years, it prevented him from reflecting warmly on the band’s music.
Upon the group’s conclusion in 1972, Fogerty closed the door on that part of his life and refused to play any of their hits during his live performances after going solo. The reasoning for this rejection was Saul Zaentz, the Fantasy Records founder, who owned the rights to the material made by the young, naïve group and cost them millions of dollars.
Thankfully, Fogerty is in a much better place these days and can proudly look back upon their career with a sense of happiness. It took until 1987 for the singer-songwriter to perform any Creedence Clearwater Revival track during his solo shows, and it wasn’t until 2023 that he regained control of his masters.
Fogerty still tours extensively, and the vast majority of his sets consist of Creedence Clearwater Revival material, which he can now play guilt-free. Since allowing himself to celebrate their legacy, only a handful of their songs have been performed on more occasions than ‘Green River’, which holds a special place in Fogerty’s heart.
The track is the titular number from Creedence Clearwater’s Revival’s third album, released in 1969. For Fogerty, the song captures the spirit and essence of everything he wanted the band to be. Musically, ‘Green River’ was a homage to Sun Records, formerly the home of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other iconic American musicians from the 1950s.
Reflecting on the album Green River to Uncut in 2012, Fogerty explained that his songwriting had stepped up a gear by this stage in his career, noting, “After Bayou Country, I began to feel I had the freedom or power to do what I wanted.”
Listing specific highlights from the record, he added, “And where I went, starting with ‘Bad Moon Rising‘, was right to my emotional, musical core, which was very resonant of Sun Records. ‘Green River’ was my favourite song from the Creedence era because it really had the whole Sun Records vibe to me – and the album, too.”
The seed that grew into ‘Green River’ was first planted in Fogerty’s mind as a child, but it took 20 years for him to realise his creative vision. The title was inspired by a place he visited on his holidays in California. As a seven-year-old, he made a pledge to himself that he’d one day write a song called ‘Green River’.
Although he was still in elementary school, Fogerty already had a keen eye for combining words with music. He recalled, “‘Green River’ came from sitting at the counter at the drugstore a block-and-a-half from my house in El Cerrito. They served soft drinks, and behind the counter was a big bottle of Green River, which was a syrup. On the label, there was this artist’s rendering of a sunset behind a little creek. I said, ‘Green River’… that’d be a cool song. Someday, I should grow up and write it.”
While Fogerty didn’t have the songwriting capabilities as a young child to write a song on a comparable level to ‘Green River’, it still takes a special breed of talent to see a phrase on a bottle of syrup and recognise it as a possible song title.
