Fortunate Son

by John Fogerty

  I admire Brad a lot, and it’s more than just his incredible music. I love how he lives his life… how he is as a person.

  I thought it would be really great if I could have my sons, Tyler and Shane, on the album with me. They’ve grown up in music, and they’re both accomplished guitar players. They have their own band called Hearty Har. Julie and I are really proud of them, and these days we can support them by going to their shows! How cool is that? I’d really like people to know that our kids have figured out a lot of this on their own. I really can’t take credit. I’m sure some people will assume that Dad showed them all this, but I didn’t.

  The boys wanted to do “Lodi.” Their generation seems to be into classic rock. I had heard them out in the garage taking “Lodi” in a folk-rock direction. It was good, but it just wasn’t ringing my bell, because for years and years I’d always thought I would like to bust out a kind of roadhouse version of “Lodi.” I’d never quite had the right situation because the original is so well-known. I didn’t want to confuse my audience. But, you know, being past sixty means I can get away with stuff. I’ve seen other guys do it (and it always made me scratch my head—wha… ?). So I talked my kids into it—“Hey, why don’t we try kind of a blues-rock version?”

  I was back on tour again, and it turned out we were going to get to record at Abbey Road, home of the Beatles. I knew we really had to have our game on for this wonderful opportunity! We didn’t actually get to record in the Beatles’ room, but we were close enough. (Yes, we did get to sneak in for a peek. That room was full of orchestral instruments, waiting for something. We stood by that piano, under that clock… from those famous Beatles photos. Whew.)

  We had a limited amount of time and hadn’t gotten to rehearse, but I wanted to make sure we nailed the song while we were there. I don’t like stuff where later you have to put it into a computer to fix it and it comes out all twisted. I wanted to be done on that day—at least the raw tracks—because we were in the shadow of the Beatles and George Martin. (Whoa, now—so much to say about them.) It was certainly a long day, but we did capture a funky roadhouse feel. Man, it’s great to set out to do something and then do it! Looking back now, I hear a similarity to the Beatles’ “Get Back.” It wasn’t intentional—maybe something was seeping through the walls.

  Young people are competitive by nature. It’s just the way they are, but I want Shane and Tyler to enjoy making music. That’s what I hope for. I have been given such a bounty in this industry, and it’s really not fair for anyone to judge my kids’ efforts against that. That’s the reason I never named any of my children John Jr. Could you imagine being Elvis Presley Jr.?

  As far as the record business, what record business? When I was a young boy there seemed to be so many independent regional record labels. It was a really cool American dream. There were kids everywhere with little bands in garages who could make a record as good as “Henrietta.” And it was quite possible for that record to be a hit on the radio. Now you make a record on your smartphone. And so can a hundred million other people. We thought the competition was pretty strong back in the day—now it’s like locusts! Yet the playlist has shrunk. You have a much smaller chance of having an independent song played than you did before. And you won’t make any money from your song anyway, because the instant somebody downloads it, it becomes free to everyone if they so choose. That’s a huge change. I have to restrain my kids from dumping all their songs on the Internet without even copyrighting and protecting them. Everything seems to be so instant and so disposable. If you can get something with the press of a button, it seems to have a lot less value.

  I had fun making Wrote a Song for Everyone. I think it’s my greatest achievement as a producer—besides my kids, that is. I certainly think of it as a high-water mark in a very long career. I put my whole life into it. And a lot of those artists did too. It was hard work, but if something’s worthwhile, there’s probably going to be some work to it. I’m just so lucky I get to call that my album.

  One person I just can’t thank enough is Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone magazine. During the early stages of Blue Moon Swamp, I found myself completely stuck, artistically frozen. I was so frustrated—so overwhelmed—with the Fantasy Records battle that I thought speaking out publicly might help save my sanity. I got on the phone with Jann and just poured out my feelings about the situation. After hearing me out, he said something like “We’ve got to tell this story. I will help you.” He had spoken just a few words, but for me it was huge. I started to go to work on songs and music. I started to move. It seems to me now that just knowing I could tell the story was enough to get me unstuck. In the end, I didn’t do the article, but I sure am grateful for the helping hand. Thank you, Jann!

  Julie: We sent the CD to Jann. We didn’t hear anything back for about a week or so, and then we got a beautiful note—he said he couldn’t stop listening to it. That was really great for John to hear. He’d been in a cave. He didn’t know.

  Then Jann invited John to lunch. The record company set it up. We got there a little late, and we’re a bit rummy because we overslept. And suddenly we’re in this kind of school cafeteria with all the employees of Rolling Stone. What we didn’t know is that they have this casual lunch where from time to time they have a guest speaker.

  Jann introduced John and said some very flattering things. The next thing you know, Jann is asking John questions, and he has to stand up and speak like he’s been called on in class. We weren’t really prepared, but John’s just a natural. Only I notice that the price tag is still on his shirt. So I jump up and tear it off, and the whole place roars.

  Afterwards we were in Jann’s office. And all of a sudden he goes, “Oh, have you seen the new Rolling Stone, with the review of your album?” He goes over to his desk, grabs it, and points at it—five stars. John had never gotten a five-star review in his whole career. I started sobbing. I was just so happy for John.

  John: I’m in a happy place when it comes to music and how it relates to me. I have a band that’s actually quite accomplished but that can also play simple… have the variation. Be as wide or narrow as you want it to be. For some reason, I can live in both worlds. I have some big plans rolling around inside my head but, you know me, I’d rather not say what they are until they’re here. Don’t talk about it—do it!

  How would I like to be remembered?

  I don’t have it all wrapped up in some tidy phrase. How about, “John Fogerty was a simple guy—an ordinary guy. And as much as he could be, he tried to be a decent person. He dearly loved his wife and children. His greatest desire in life was to take care of them—and have them love him.” I sure hope Julie and my kids know that. That’s what is important to me.

  I truly love music, but I’m not disappointed with my life if I’m not doing that just this second. I’ve already had an amazing journey. After where I’ve been, I know how incredibly lucky I am to have been given this chance. A short while after I had met Julie, as I started spending more and more time with her, I began to say, “You know, honey, it was worth twenty years in hell to spend one day with you.”

  Pretty much every day I say thank you. I’ll say it all the way to the pearly gates—the most important thing that you can find in this world is love. It’s worth far more than any of the other things you may think you want, and if you attain love, you’ve got everything. I absolutely mean that. I realize I sound like one of those goofy guys on TV, but it really is the secret of life.

  I consider myself the luckiest man in the world. Because I found Julie.

  EPILOGUE

  Flying

  THE OTHER MORNING I got up at about 4 a.m. I picked up my guitar, went in my library, and turned on the fire. Everybody’s asleep, the house is quiet, it’s still dark. The guitar was cold, so I put it in front of the fire. It takes a while to get warmed up.

  Since I’d gotten up that early, I had a lot of time. The first hour was pretty good… getting better at some of the stuff I’m working
on. But the second hour was “Oh boy, here we go!” I was really in heaven because I’d gotten to a place I’d never been before. Where it was just effortless, it just comes out of you, and you’re no longer concerned with technique.

  Yesterday I could fly.

  There is one last song I want to tell you about: “Mystic Highway.” It’s on Wrote a Song for Everyone. If a little green man arrived from Mars and requested to hear just one John Fogerty song, this is the one I’d play for him.

  It’s the song I’d been working on the longest. I had written the title in my little songbook maybe thirty years ago. It was alluring. A good group of words. Most people are going to go, “What the heck is that?” But it wasn’t a phrase that was meaningless, like “Proud Mary.”

  It’s a concept that really resonates with me. Even way back then, I just saw a highway, a road, a thread through time and space. I can see a group of travelers, a small band of people, maybe a family, kind of shadowy, with their faces looking up towards the sky. They are traveling. Weary, but not broken, not defeated. They’ve been doing this for a long time. I clearly see a man there, a dad, a father figure—it’s me, not some other guy. He’s got a cowboy hat on. They are not in a big hurry. They are expected on this journey, on this “mystic highway.” And eventually they’re going to get there, wherever it is they are supposed to get to, and it may be another twenty minutes, and it may be another twenty years, or it may be another twenty thousand years. Who knows? This is their destiny.

  “Mystic Highway” is certainly a deep and ongoing subject. That’s why it took so long to write, I guess. It took me forever to wrestle it to the ground. A lot of times I’d look at it and say, “Man, I don’t understand that.” It just seemed way too big.

  But as this album was taking shape, I said, “Doggone it, I’m going to do ‘Mystic Highway.’” I knew I wasn’t going to write, “Oh, yes, the Mystic Highway is forty-two miles long and turns left at Tutwiler, wacka-doo, wacka-doo.” No, you have a lot of emotion about it. And a lot of wonderment.

  It had to express my beliefs, and it had to be general enough that anyone could believe it—if they wanted to listen and buy into it. I didn’t want to be specific and go, “Well, I’m a human being here on earth, and about nineteen galaxies way over there, in a different dimension, there’s another little planet, and there’s some beings named Ward and June there with their young’uns, and I’m connected to them.” Which I believe we are. You might think things work some other way. That’s fine.

  I started the song like this:

  Lately I begin to wonder / How it’s all gonna end

  Yes. Isn’t everybody at my age? Or anybody at any age? I wasn’t doing it with any sort of pandering—you could be fifteen and asking the question. A kid sitting there on the side of the river with his little fishing pole: “How’s it all gonna end?” We all do it.

  It’s one of those things no one can tell you about. You’re just going to have to experience it yourself, like the first time you touch fire. You may hear someone say, “Listen, my friend: after it happens, I’ll come back and tell you.” But nobody ever has. Except Jesus, I guess. That’s why we still don’t know.

  Without knowin’ where I’m goin’ / Probably get there anyway

  That lyric is hilarious to me. And so true. “Mystic Highway” is very spiritual. Reverential. There’s a whole lot of God in there.

  Why fight the idea of God? Wouldn’t you even want to hedge your bets? I don’t have to think of it just one way: “Oh, yeah, I go on Sunday, kneel down, and God’s that guy with the big white beard and lightning bolts…” No, I believe there are all kinds of different ways for people to think of what God is. And it’s all good as far as I’m concerned. They don’t have to contradict. Personally, I think God is the whole thing—everything. Assemble everything in the whole universe to infinity. All of it together is God.

  Everything is connected / Everything and everyone

  That’s not too complicated. I happen to think that the entire universe is God. Therefore, we are God.

  We’re all connected. There’s a lot of science pointing to the idea that living things like plants have awareness and feelings.

  We who live together on this planet are all one.

  Smooth city slickers and loaded dice / Take your money in a pig’s eye

  Maybe some of the reason I feel so good now is because I was trapped for so long in a horrible place. Where I felt really bad. One of my constant companions then was frustration, which is a terrible emotion. And feeling lost, which we’ve all experienced from time to time. When you feel that way, it’s a nightmare.

  I don’t feel like that anymore, and man, I’m really grateful that I don’t. Yet I am thankful for the journey. Well, yeah, I wish I didn’t have to take some parts of that journey, but it’s just there—part of me. The way I see it, I had to go through all of that stuff to get to Julie.

  I wish there had been a shortcut.

  But even the hard parts of the journey seem to be important, because I wouldn’t be me sitting here now without them. I’m not going to forget about what I’ve been through. But I don’t sit around worrying about it, or spend a lot of time trying to rearrange it.

  God wants you and every little other part of him to do well, be happy and healthy, and be with him. It’s all about being positive. At peace, content. That describes me right now.

  Tomorrow I’ll get up early and play my guitar, just like I do every day before I drive Kelsy to school. Maybe this time when I play, I’ll fly.

  I will certainly dream…

  Because my dream came true.

  This is the little songwriting notebook I bought in the fall of 1967. The first entry was “Proud Mary.”

  My mom saved quite a bit of my work from when I was little. Here is the beginning of my writing.

  Baby shot of me.

  Me as a little boy. I was playing the game my dad had invented.

  My dad and me at Putah Creek. Those memories turned into the song “Green River.”

  My mom, Edith Lucile Fogerty.

  My dad, Galen Robert Fogerty.

  Five boys. My poor mom.

  My report card from Mrs. Starck.

  Fourteen years old, playing at the county fair.

  Tommy Fogerty and the Blue Velvets. All of us are pretty young. That’s the Strat with slinky strings.

  That’s me at the Monkey Inn with Mike Burns (left) and Tom Fanning (middle). (Courtesy of James R. Bagnall Family Archive)

  Here’s a shot of me in the army.

  Martha Paiz, my first wife. Met at nineteen. Married at twenty. Just kids, not ready for marriage.

  I kept a scrapbook in the early days. This was a shot I had in the book from the beginning of what would become CCR.

  Me with my mom, grandma, and son Josh.

  The Golliwogs.

  Me at the Factory.

  Lost in thought. Stayed up all night writing songs (again).

  Making records.

  The process.

  At the mixing board.

  Catching up on the latest.

  Just putting my thoughts together.

  The Factory. I am having a meeting with Jake Rohrer.

  Creedence with Saul Zaentz.

  ROCK and ROLL!

  CCR as a trio.

  The house in Albany, California, that was my studio/office. I spent many years here learning to play all the instruments for Centerfield. It was a somewhat dark place for me, as I surely didn’t feel so good during this time. Now I hear it’s a preschool. It makes me happy that it turned into something sweet!

  Flying lessons.

  Working on The Blue Ridge Rangers.

  Seymour Bricker helped me sign a new deal with Asylum Records. I thought I was getting away from Fantasy. I was still a recluse.

  One of my favorite pastimes.

  Hunting in the wilderness near Troy, Oregon. I loved the time I spent there. There is nothing like being out in nature. It just makes everythi
ng bad go away, if only for a while.

  Our home in the woods.

  Early 1970, at the Oakland Coliseum. Over the long years, this shot always looked like “good-bye” to me. Sad . . . Happily, today I am playing my songs, and Julie picked this shot to promote my tour. I am grateful to my family and fans, because now I can play my music full of joy. (Iconic Images / Baron Wolman)

  The happiest day of my life, April 20, 1991. I married Julie, the love of my life!

  Our wedding day.

  Coverdale Lake, Union, Michigan. This shot was taken after Julie’s grandpa Ray and I caught a fish together. The joy on his face (and mine) was priceless and so pure. He was a wonderful, wonderful man. The best man I ever met. I will remember this incredible day for the rest of my life. He gave me the knife he used to clean his fish. I cherish that knife.