Born On The Bayou

Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty, who wrote the song, had never actually been to a bayou when he wrote the song - he researched it in encyclopedias and imagined a bayou childhood for the song's narrative. Fogerty, who is from the very unswamplike Berkeley, California, got his first look at a bayou courtesy of John Fred, the one-hit wonder who sang "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)." Fred was from Louisiana, and when Creedence played a show in Baton Rouge in 1969, he met Fogerty at a rehearsal and offered to take him to a real bayou. They drove 15 minutes to Bayou Forche, where they ate some crabs and crayfish, giving Fogerty the idea for this song.

In Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" issue, Fogerty explained that the song originated when Creedence Clearwater Revival were booked at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom in 1968. Said Fogerty: "We were the #7 act on the bill, bottom of the totem pole. And as the first guys to go on, we were the last to soundcheck before they opened the doors. It was like, 'Here's the drums, boom, boom; here's the guitar, clank, clank.' I looked over at the guys and said, 'Hey, follow this!' Basically, it was the riff and the attitude of 'Born on the Bayou,' without the words." Drummer Doug Clifford remembers it happening in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Fogerty says the song was inspired by gospel music and popular movies. He explained in Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial History of Creedence Clearwater Revivial, "'Born on the Bayou' was... about a mythical childhood and a heat-filled time, the Fourth of July. I put it in the swamp where, of course, I had never lived. I was trying to be a pure writer, no guitar in hand, visualizing and looking at the bare walls of my apartment. 'Chasing down a hoodoo.' Hoodoo is a magical, mystical, spiritual, non-defined apparition, like a ghost or a shadow, not necessarily evil, but certainly otherworldly." Hoodoo was the name of a 1976 solo album by Fogerty that he never released. By his own account, it was terrible. A couple of singles leaked out, though. Unfortunately for Fogerty, at least one ("You've got the Magic") can be found on Youtube.