The singer Bruce Springsteen always wanted to write like
Any songwriter would give everything they had to say that they could write half of what Bruce Springsteen has done.
Despite what some people might imply in the modern age about him not being a model American, he is the blueprint for what all great rock and roll is supposed to be, whether it’s about supporting the little guy or never losing sight of what the average blue-collar worker is all about whenever he plays one of his shows. He knows that the best songs are about looking at the simple pleasures in life, and every one of his heroes was doing the exact same thing when he started.
Because, really, none of Bob Dylan’s songs is about living the most high-end life in the world. He has prided himself on being a drifter everywhere he goes, and even when looking at some of his most celebrated works, he’s always taken the ‘voice of a generation’ compliment with a grain of salt every single time he performs. But there was something different to the way that someone like John Fogerty approached his song crafting compared to both Springsteen and Dylan.
CCR wasn’t meant to be the coolest band on the planet when they first started playing, but that was the entirety of their appeal. They were average guys with a band, and since all of their songs were about the universal truths that everyone seemed to go through, it was easy for everyone, from hippies to war veterans to the average pop fan, to find some common ground whenever a tune like ‘Bad Moon Rising’ or ‘Proud Mary’ came on.
It’s that simplicity that really struck a nerve with Springsteen when he first heard his music, even honouring Fogerty later in life, saying, “[He is] the Hank Williams of our generation. I’ve never had a No. 1 hit. People ask what songs I wish I’d written. My answer? John Fogerty’s entire catalog.” But it’s about more than the hits that make Fogerty one of the greatest artists of all time whenever you bring up CCR’s material.
A lot of people would have claimed that the band was nothing but another pop act, but there’s a lot more going on in a lot of their albums than you realise. Not many people could have pulled off turning a tune like ‘Ramble Tamble’ into a massive jam or make such biting words sound so good on ‘Fortunate Son’, but every step of the way, Fogerty never wanted to lose sight of the kind of living that he had heard when he first laid his ears on people like Bob Dylan and The Beatles.
The same applies to Springsteen as well. Sure, ‘The Boss’ has a lot of moving parts in his stage show since he’s got the E Street Band behind him, but whereas Fogerty is talking about a lot of the traditional American values, Springsteen could go a little bit deeper. He wanted to meet his audience at the ground level, and some of the biggest songs of his career come from when he’s taking Fogerty’s model and applying it to his own career.
Take a song like ‘Born in the USA’. The whole tune has always been misconstrued as a patriotic tune, when really, the whole thing feels like an answer to a tune like ‘Fortunate Son’. Fogerty had been talking about those who got sent off to war while people with a silver spoon in their hand managed to make a name for themselves at home, so Springsteen’s story about a soldier coming back from war is the sad after-effects of what happens when someone sees the dark side of humanity on the other side of the world.
So when Springsteen talks about wanting to write Fogerty’s entire catalogue, remember that it’s just because of the financial residuals that are in there. Fogerty was the voice of the people during CCR’s prime, and even if you didn’t have to like every single thing he made, you could recognise the characters that populated every one of his songs.
