“Bad Moon Rising” is one of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s best-known songs today. When the band released it in April 1969, the track announced their second album of the year. It also climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. However, some may not realize that the classic tune about hurricanes and ruin also marked a musical turning point for songwriter John Fogerty.
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Up on its release, critics praised “Bad Moon Rising” for his louder, bolder, and bigger sound in comparison to the band’s previous singles. Part of this change in the group’s sound was the result of Fogerty having his gear stolen and being forced to buy a new guitar.
John Fogerty on Writing “Bad Moon Rising”
John Fogerty discussed writing and recording the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic on his YouTube channel. In the video, he revealed the inspiration behind the song and how it marked a major change for him.
“It was inspired, really, by the way kids talked in those days, in kind of an astrological sense,” Fogerty said. “People would come up to each other and say, ‘What’s your sign?’ and the answer might be something like, ’I’m a Sagittarius with Mercury rising,’ whatever that means,” he explained.
While late ’60s pickup lines inspired the title, something much older inspired the rest of the song. “The song itself is inspired by an old black-and-white movie I used to see as a kid on late-night television. The movie is called The Devil and Daniel Webster,” he said. “It’s a classic tale of a guy who is down on his luck, so he sells his soul to the Devil in return for much good fortune here in his earthly life,” Fogerty explained.
“He does the deal with the Devil, and a terrible storm comes to the community. All night long, the man is cowering in his barn while he hears this raging storm outside. In the morning, he sees that all of his neighbors’ crops have been destroyed, smashed to the ground, except for his, which is untouched.”
A Burglary Changed Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Sound
John Fogerty played a Gibson 175 on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s first two albums. However, that guitar was stolen before he could use it on Green River. The theft led him to switch guitars, which changed his guitar tone.
“One day after rehearsing with the guys, I drove down to Fantasy’s new headquarters in Oakland,” he recalled. “I parked right in front on the street and went inside and had a little meeting with the folks at Fantasy. When I came back out, I could see that someone had thrown a brick through the rear window of my car. When I looked inside my new 175 and my old Tremolux Fender amp were gone,” Fogerty recalled.
At the time, the band was days away from recording “Bad Moon Rising.” So, in a panic, Fogerty went to a music store that had just opened in nearby Albany. “I walked in the front door and I said to the man, ‘Do you have any Les Paul guitars?’ The man said, ‘I have one,’” he recalled. “He pointed over to the wall. I went over there and looked at the guitar and said,’ But it’s black!’ I had been expecting a sunburst guitar,” Fogerty added.
He took the guitar off the wall, tuned it down a whole step, plugged it in, and strummed an E chord. “It was magical, epical, really. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My eyes got real big. I looked at the man and said, ‘I’ll take it!’” That sparked his lifelong love of Les Pauls.
“Bad Moon Rising” was the first song he recorded with a Les Paul. It was also the first song he recorded using D standard tuning.
Featured Image by Tom Walko/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
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