John Fogerty Recalls the Lyrics to an “Unusual” CCR Classic That Came to Him “In a Raging Torrent”

John Fogerty has posted the latest in a series of video features in which he shares stories about how he wrote some of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s most famous songs.

In the new clip, Fogerty recalls the day he wrote his old band’s politically charged 1969 smash “Fortunate Son.” “Fortunate Son” was featured on CCR’s fourth studio album, Willy and the Poor Boys. Issued as a single in October 1969, it peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The 79-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer began the video by noting, “Well, this song is unusual in a couple of ways. First of all, it’s a song [that] probably took the longest for me to write, and at the same time was also the quickest song I ever wrote. It’s also, some say, a political song.”

Fogerty Remembers Events That Influenced His Political and Social Beliefs

Fogerty then shared a recollection from his childhood that he says influenced his attitude toward those with political power.

He remembered that when he was in second grade, “They sent us home from school one day to watch the inauguration of [President Dwight] Eisenhower on television. And of course, we had an old, squeaky black-and-white TV, and we turned on that thing at home and … basically, I watched a whole bunch of big black limousines coming down the road. And that’s about all I remembered, except that, even at that young age, I was a little bit suspicious, let’s say, of people driving around in fancy big black cars.”

[RELATED: John Fogerty Shares the Story Behind the Movie and the Guitar Theft that Helped Shape His Classic CCR Song “Bad Moon Rising”]

Fogerty continued, “I guess it piqued my interest in politics, ’cause over the years I would watch these conventions on television. They were pretty boring, but every now and then somebody’d get up and say, ‘Well, the great state of Texas would like to nominate her favorite son … and so the idea of the favorite son kind of stuck in my mind.”

John also pointed out that growing up, he was “kind of at the lower end of the economic scale,” so he was “a little suspicious of powerful and rich people.”

On His Experience Serving in the Military Also Influencing the Song

Fogerty then talked about how his experiences with serving in the military also helped lay the groundwork for the song.

“You come on up into the middle [1960s,] the Vietnam War’s going on, and like many, many young men my age, I was drafted about 1966,” he explained. “Eventually, I ended up in an Army reserve unit, and that was great, but at the same time, you’d be seeing these stories on television where some senator managed to get his son out of the draft, or some rich tycoon, you know, millionaire was able to have his son avoid military service. And that just didn’t seem fair.”

On Writing “Fortunate Son”

Fogerty eventually focused on the actual writing of “Fortunate Son.” He recalled that he began writing a tune for Creedence that he initially planned to call “Favorite Son’ in the summer of 1969. He also explained that once he started writing the lyrics, they came together extremely quick.

“I’m thinking about all these things, these political things, these economic things, these unfair class things that are going on in our culture, and I start putting the music together and showing my band, of course,” Fogerty noted. “And as we rehearse for a few weeks, we start to get pretty tight, and I realized we’re gonna record pretty soon, [so] I’d better actually sit down and write the words to this song.”

John said he then went to his bedroom and began writing lyrics on a yellow notepad.
So, one day, I go off into my bedroom, I sit down on the edge of the bed with one of those yellow pads, and

“[S]omewhere in that process the idea switched [from ‘Favorite Son’] to ‘Fortunate Son,’” he shared. “And man, all those thoughts just came out in a raging torrent. Twenty minutes later, after walking into the room with nothing, I walked out of that room with a completed song called ‘Fortunate Son.’ And that was, by far, the quickest I’ve ever written a song.”

Fogerty added “[I] showed it to the band, got to the studio and recorded that song, and made a record. And that’s the story about the day I wrote ‘Fortunate Son.’”

Fogerty’s Upcoming Concert Plans

Fogerty currently has three confirmed concerts lined up in 2025. The shows are scheduled for January 22, 24, and 25 at the Encore Theater in Las Vegas.

Tickets for Fogerty’s concerts are available now via various outlets, including StubHub.