The Old Man Down The Road

This song deals with John Fogerty's extensive legal troubles, which weighed on him for over a decade. An early contract he signed forced him to relinquish the rights to his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs but at the same time obligated him to keep recording. After the band broke up, he was so disillusioned with the industry that he refused to play the Creedence songs, in part because so many of them were joyful tunes, and he was feeling anything but. "The Old Man Down The Road" is a depiction of the Devil using imagery found in many blues songs where a Faustian deal is struck. This is how Fogerty felt about his contract: he gave up his songs (and to some extent, his soul) so he could make music, and now he was paying the price. "It tells the story about a man standing in your way with a suitcase covered in rattlesnake hide, eyes as black as coal," Fogerty said. In his case, this demon is the record company.

The first single from John Fogerty's Centerfield album, this was his first big hit as a solo artist. Fogerty was the driving force of Creedence Clearwater Revival, which broke up in 1972. He released solo albums in 1973 and 1975, then took 10 years away from recording because of legal battles and also because he was enjoying life on his farm.

Saul Zaentz, who owned the publishing rights to the Creedence Clearwater Revival songs, sued Fogerty, claiming "The Old Man Down The Road" sounded too much like the 1970 Creedence song "Run Through The Jungle." This bizarre lawsuit may have been the first time an artist was sued for plagiarizing himself. The case went to a jury and was eventually dismissed in Fogerty's favor, although appeals kept the case alive until 1993. A frustrated Fogerty even refused to play any Creedence songs on his 1986 tour. During the trial, Fogerty at one point was trying to explain that there are only so many ways to play Swamp Rock. After a demonstration on his guitar, he said, "Yeah, it’s the same interval. What am I supposed to do, get an inoculation?" In a 1997 interview with Goldmine, Fogerty said: "I proved that, no, I didn’t copy myself, I invented something new that really sounds a lot like me. Do you find fault with Elvis for sounding like Elvis? When McCartney sounds like McCartney or Dylan sounds like Dylan? No one else ever had to go through that." It wasn't until 2023 that Fogerty gained control of his own catalog by buying it from Concord Music, which had acquired the Fantasy catalog.