Music Monday ~ John Fogerty

Today's the birthday of John Fogerty, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, formerly of the famous 1970s band Creedence Clearwater Revival (aka CCR), photograph below. I'm glad that I can feature this artist today, Memorial Day. He's a songwriter who has made his feelings clear about war. Here for instance:
I Can't Take It No More

Stop talking about staying the course
You keep a-beating that old dead horse
You know you lied about how we went to war
I Can't Take It No More

AND

Deja Vu
Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio
Did you try to read the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I've heard it all before
It's like Deja Vu all over again

Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio
Could your eyes believe the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I've heard it all before
It's like Deja Vu all over again.

I, along with most of my generation on both sides of the Atlantic, am familiar with his many hit songs: Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Rockin' All Over the World, Lodi etc. - whether sung by him or covered by others (eg Tina Turner, Status Quo).






Fogerty's musical style, according to music critics, can be described by any combination from the following list: swamp, roots, rock, country, blues, folk, gospel - throw in operetta and that'd be a full house! What the heck is "swamp"? I guess it's music of the Louisiana swamps.....so cajun must be added to that list, though nothing of his I've sampled has been quite that swampy.

Fogerty's star burned brightly for around three years in the early 1970s, along with CCR's, but the band disintegrated. Accusations of jealousy and betrayal were followed by years of litigation.

From Reclaiming My Voice at the Daily Beast website ~

Fogerty:

.............. By the mid-1980s the emotional and financial toll of fighting these battles for so long came to a head. One day I was giving yet another deposition and found myself so angry that I couldn't remember my own address or telephone number! I remember going into a department store and being so fearful and dysfunctional that I could not ask a salesperson about buying a pair of socks. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't feel. Music was who I was and I could not understand why or how I could lose so much.

He withdrew from the music scene completely for several years, eventually returned with solo albums. At first he refused to perform CCR songs live, but began to do so again at a benefit concert for Vietnam Veterans, who made up much of the generation for whom his songs became the story of their lives. He said, in interview "Gradually I realized that these were not just my songs anymore."

Many of Fogerty's songs address important social issues. Though these originally related to events during a particular slice of time, they remain relevant, and timeless. Examples:


Fortunate Son A song written in part due to a response about Eisenhower's grandson marrying Nixon's daughter. It was meant to symbolize the frustrations by the common man, just drafted. During the Vietnam War, 234 sons of Congressman were drafted. Out of the 234, only 28 were actually sent to Vietnam and zero were killed.

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,

It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me;
I ain't no fortunate one, no,


Who'll Stop the Rain
(2 verses)
Long as I remember the rain been comin' down
Clouds of mystery pourin' confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages tryin' to find the sun.
And I wonder still I wonder who'll stop the rain.

I went down Virginia seekin' shelter from the storm
Caught up in the fable I watched the tower grow
Five year plans and new deals wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder still I wonder who'll stop the rain.


Long Dark Night , relates to Hurricane Katrina and President G. W. Bush


I'll embed my own, non-political, favourite, Lodi, from the 1970s:

I'm Stuck in Lodi Again.....




ASTROLOGY

John Fogerty's natal chart with data from Astrodatabank



Once again, I don't have far to seek to find rebellion against the establishment - Sun conjunct Uranus (planet of rebellion and revolution, change and the avant garde).
Don't need to say much more than that!

If pressed I might add that there's an opposition from Capricorn Moon (inner self) to Capricorn's ruling planet Saturn (business matters, restriction, limitation) in Cancer, linking to two square (inharmonious) aspects with Neptune (creativity) in Libra. This makes up what astrologers call a T-square, though to be an unstable, stressful aspect pattern but can also act as "a prod" to effectivness and dynamism. The signs involved in thsi T-square are cardinal signs, making the configuration extra-dynamic, a need to act at once - patience is not usually in an individual with this configuration in their natal chart. the planets and signs involved do fit the general "feel" and pattern of Fogerty's career.

POSTSCRIPT ~~~ After drafting this post and adding tags I noticed that I'd written about John Fogerty before, in 2007, after hearing him sing on a late night TV talk show. Dang! Never mind! Anyway, here's a link to the 2007 post: John Fogerty's Revival. There's more detail in that post on his wonderfully rebellious nature.

PPS ~ Also after drafting the post I saw John Fogerty perform on the American Idol finale show last Wednesday evening, singing with Phillip Phillips who was later announced as this season's American Idol.


Congratulations to both are in order:

Happy Birthday John Fogerty, and thanks for those wonderful songs!

Congratulations Phillip Phillips, and good wishes for quick recovery after surgery!

John Fogerty's Revival

Late Tuesday evening, in front of the TV, semi-conscious, supposedly watching Letterman's chat show just ending, through the sleepy blur I suddenly heard someone singing "I can't stand any more of your dirty little war......" The singer really did sound pissed off. I opened my allergy-ridden eyes wide, poked HeWhoKnows in the side and demanded "Who's that?"

"John Fogerty...I've been trying to wake you!"

"Who's he?"

"Creedence Clearwater Revival" - remember - "Proud Mary", "Bad Moon Rising", "Lodi"? He wrote 'em and lots more."

"Ahhh!" I sat up and took notice.

HeWhoKnows had noted that John Fogerty had been singing a different song, then right at the end of his performance discarded his harmonica and ripped into the song I'd heard... gritty, bitter voice rasping the words of a very brief snip from that song. We wondered if perhaps it had been slipped in - not been part of the approved script/schedule. We watched as Letterman walked across to greet Fogerty to note his reaction - but the camera moved away, and that part wasn't shown. Odd!

On further investigation, yesterday morning I discovered that John has just released a new CD "Revival", which contains the songs he sang on Letterman, and other songs of protest against the current US administration.

John Fogerty earned gold stars from me for this performance. I've been looking at his chart. He was born 28 May 1945, Berkeley, California, at (according to Astrotheme) 7.28pm.



Sun at 7 Gemini, Uranus at 12 Gemini - there's more than a hint of rebellion there, with Uranus flavouring his communicative Gemini Sun. Neptune (planet of imagination) and Sun are in harmonious trine, that has to be good for a songwriter. Venus and Mars conjoin in Aries bringing strength and a little aggressive edge to his nature. Mercury in sensible but stubborn Taurus trines Jupiter (publishing planet) in critical Virgo, squaring that Sun/Uranus combination - perhaps he struggles with himself at times, wondering whether his rebellious side goes a little too far?

Natal Moon in sensible, business-like Capricorn widely opposes Saturn in Cancer - not sure exactly how that manifests. We can only know as much as his publicity exposes.

A quick look at current transits shows that transiting rebellious Uranus at 15 Pisces is opposing John's natal Jupiter, and Jupiter, as mentioned above, links into a pattern in his natal chart.

From a good review of his latest CD"Revival" HERE

"And if you really want anger, and want to hear what John Fogerty would sound like auditioning for the Ramones, give a listen to "I Can't Take It No More." It's your basic scream of rage at George Bush, telling him that he (the singer) can't take any more of his lies, and calling him on how his daddy bought him his deferment from the Vietnam war and he's just another spoiled brat."

and

""Long Dark Night" on the other hand is a hard rock song, more reminiscent of Neil Young and Crazy Horse than anything that came out of the swamp. It's all about Georgie who wants your children so he can have a war, with all his little buddies taking what they can while the taking is good."

In a recent issue of Rocky Mountain News, Mark Brown interviews John. Here's an illuminating extract regarding his previous political songs on a CD released in 2004:

"When "Déjà Vu" was just out and was fresh and I was on tour, basically, in many places I would play that song and I would be booed. There would be quite a healthy group of people booing. A lot of noise and controversy going on.

I will tell you I was supposed to be on one of the morning network shows. At the last minute, the afternoon before we were going to go on ? the show called my management and said 'We don't want John to sing that "Déjà Vu" song.' (laughs). But they'd already invited me to be on this show. Just for a minute, just for an eye-blink, I looked at that. I thought 'That's not what were going to do. We're either doing the song or we're not doing the show.' As we all kind of discussed it we're sort of sitting in a pretty good spot here. If I don't do a show and it becomes known that they didn't want me to do "Déjà Vu" it's going to look pretty bad on them, not me.

As the afternoon wore on and phone calls went back and forth I just stood by my guns. It was very clear. All of these broadcasting companies are owned by big corporate monolith corporations. They make most of their profits from a war in one way or another. They're very conservative by nature. Certainly most of these corporations give very hefty sizable donations to the Republican party. I was suddenly a persona non grata or whatever. I realized OK, we're not going to go on the show and by the way we're going to let everybody know why. That kinda made them say 'Oh well, never mind, everything's OK.'"

Go get 'em, John!!