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Albums, Songs and Concerts Here we discuss our impression of CCR albums, songs and concerts, as well as the songs meaning

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Old 19.03.2002, 19:11
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Review by J. Fogerty
This happens in the Bay Area more often than in other places:

The sun is shining, yet you have rain falling down, rainbows and raindrops falling, as the wind blows the rain into the Bay through the Golden Gate.

"Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" is about the break-up of Creedence Clearwater Revival. "Have you ever seen the rain coming down, sunny day?" Creedence was supposed to be sunny days, the golden time, yet look at the rain falling down on us. The song was off the Pendulum album, which also referred to the break-up, a pendulum swinging one way toward all the wonderful times, now it was swinging back the other way, which was bad. Things were bad, a struggle. The trick I had been able to pull off was writing and showing everybody what to play, which held them at bay. Our success also held them at bay. Then we had a big meeting, A BAND MEETING, in capitol letters, a week before the recording of Pendulum. This meeting didn't effect Pendulum too much, but the idea was that band wanted to become a democracy instead of an autocracy, or maybe a dictatorship. I was the tyrant, a dictator.

After Pendulum was recorded, about six weeks after the THE BAND MEEETING, we planned a big coming-out press party, just two and a half years into our career. I call it the Night of the Generals, everybody was now a general, no soldiers to do the work. We hired Rogers and Cowan to proclaim that the tyranny was over, Creedence was now a democracy. I went along with it, there wasn't much else I could do. Yet that's what they wanted, so I took a big swallow, and thought, "Ooookay."

The guys all talked to Rolling Stone and the rest of the press about how they were going to be singing and writing, making up their own music parts instead of following John. As a surprise to me, I even had to get up and say something nice about Saul Zaentz. I swallowed hard and told the story about how Saul had loaned the band $1200 so we could buy a new Kustom Amp. Soon enough, it all fell apart in front of my eyes. After the tyranny, fourteen months later, Mardi Gras came out. But ever since that album came out, the guys have spent the next 27 years proclaiming, "It wasn't our idea. John made us do that." Baloney! All you have to do is go back and read the articles. The guys had seized the reins of power.

Critics at the time called Mardi Gras "Fogerty's revenge." My only question is, revenge for what? God forbid, we had a world class outfit with a name that was revered and honored. Yet here we were, trashing it ourselves. I don't think the band realized "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" was about our break-up. But at the time we were recording it, there was a writer named John Hollywell who was writing a book called Inside Creedence, which came out after the group had broken up. It was a paperback, the only book ever written about Creedence. He was a sensitive guy. He knew . As we were playing it in the studio, he came up to me after with tears in his eyes. He'd figured it out.

Last edited by nerdistmonk; 26.02.2010 at 05:52.
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