The 1968 song that made Creedence Clearwater Revival the biggest band in America: “The best thing”
At first, it seemed that the mantra of Creedence Clearwater Revival was to wow people with what they knew – only to spin that on its head.
After all, the genesis of the band started out in the late 1950s, under the alias of the Blue Velvets, performing covers of early rock bands and guitar music, turning it into their own instrumental forms. This era only saw them gain limited success, but it was clearly still pivotal enough to set them on a road to knowing what kind of group they wanted to be.
It took the better part of ten years for them to actually reap the rewards and start becoming famous, of course, but all that time was spent purely grafting and honing their craft to the point where, when the gun was finally fired, they were able to get off to the races without any false starts or ever having to look back.
That steadfast and unwavering view on their goal was pivotal, especially given that during their most prolific period of 1969 to 1971, they produced no less than 14 top ten singles, and in many ways, they had no choice but to keep going, because if they had stopped, the train would have simply left the station without them.
But naturally, there was one song that had to get the momentum rolling, and that was ‘Susie Q’. The song was originally a rockabilly standard released by American musician Dale Hawkins in 1957, but by the time that CCR got their hands on it in 1968 and gave it a full makeover, it was, quite intentionally, a wholly new track designed to fit their own purposes.
Not necessarily prioritising your own original songs might seem like an odd concept for other bands to consider, but for John Fogerty, it was all part of the long game. “I had noticed just watching rock ’n’ roll and music over the years that different bands will have different sounds, of course, but the core to that is the songs,” he astutely explained. “Meaning when something comes along and has a certain song, it’s a definitive thing, but not as definitive as the song itself.”
As such, he felt that the song was the mechanic: the malleable thing that you could mess with, a little bit like a child and Play-Doh. He thought that reinventing songs people already knew, but breathing new life into them, was the prime way of showing that. “Something can sound a little quirky, be a little off-centre or off the mainstream,” he said.
“But if that same group or artist starts having a bunch of songs, they will actually sway public opinion to not only enjoy that quirky sound but start to think that’s the best thing.” It was a deeply skewed way of thinking – not one that everyone would understand or agree with – but for CCR, it was instantly clear that this was the key to opening up the vein of their unique success.
Fogerty was wise enough not to be fooled or conditioned into that safety blanket, though. Instead, he only used that method as a launching pad for the band, to get audiences already rapt and listening to their sound before unleashing their own songs to go with it. It didn’t come without risks, of course, but it was a mark of CCR’s wicked genius.
