For as long as there has been popular music, there have been artists who use music as a form of social protest. While the idea of protest songs might be synonymous with anti-authoritarian punk and hip-hop, it was the hippie movement and counterculture that produced the most protest anthems. Particularly in America, folk and rock music was taking aim at increasingly right-wing governments and their regressive foreign policy. During this period, few protest songs were as defiant as ‘Fortunate Son’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Anti-war protests were an unavoidable aspect of the hippie movement, inspiring countless iconic songs and signifying a growing political consciousness within America’s youth. Young people in the US saw their nation’s military involvement in Vietnam as unjustified, cruel and unnecessary. As the war went on and details about the horrific war crimes committed by US troops were broadcast back home, the war grew more and more unpopular.
A major contributing factor to the US pulling out of Vietnam was the vast unpopularity of the war, spurred on by countercultural authors and musicians. Among those creatives were Creedence Clearwater Revival, first formed in 1959 as The Blue Velvets. During their early years, the band were famed for their jukebox rock and roll stylings but, as they matured, their music became much more politically minded – eventually culminating in their defining song, ‘Fortunate Son’.
The track was penned by guitarist and lead singer John Fogerty and was initially released in 1969, at the peak of the anti-war movement. Often misinterpreted as a patriotic anthem as a result of the opening lyrics, “Some folks are born made to wave the flag, Hoo, they’re red, white and blue”, the song was actually a criticism of the class system and military action in the US. Within the song, Fogerty deals with the fact that, if you were wealthy enough, you could avoid being drafted into fighting in Vietnam; the ‘Fortunate Son’ is one who is born into wealth and power.
Reportedly written in the space of 20 minutes, Fogerty has since attested that the track was inspired by his resentment of the political class. He once told Rolling Stone, “Julie Nixon was hanging around with David Eisenhower, and you just had the feeling that none of these people were going to be involved with the war”. CCR did not seem to resent the soldiers themselves, more so that the war was being orchestrated by rich men to be fought by the working classes.
“The song speaks more to the unfairness of class than war itself,” Fogerty has previously said of the song, “It’s the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them”. Despite the obvious political leaning of the song, it has been ironically misinterpreted by a wave of nationalistic right-wing politicians over the years and was even used by Donald Trump – who avoided the Vietnam draft thanks, in part, to his father’s money and power – during campaign rallies.
Despite its historic misinterpretation, ‘Fortunate Son’ remains a defiant anthem detailing the repeated subjugation of the working classes by the political class. As a song, it is far more important and revolutionary than many ‘classic rock’ radio stations give it credit for. Perhaps that is why John Fogerty has had to repeatedly correct people with regard to the song’s meaning over the years.
