Oooh, oooh, down the road I go.


Posted On: Saturday - August 14th 2021 6:37PM MST
In Topics: 
  Music

Well that wasn't a very cheery week, post-wise, here at Peak Stupidity. Not everything is all grim, but it can feel that way. Lots of our posts point out the better America of days past, but of course there were problems too.

The first time I heard the Creedence Clearwater Revival song featured in this post, I thought, wow, this John Fogerty is a real Debbie Downer. OK, with that best voice EVAH in rock music, it still sounded good, but the lyrics are a recital of all kinds of problems America was having right at a half century ago. (Plus, the singer's own problems too, I guess - "mortgage on the home, mortgage on the home!" Hey, man, sell some more records and pay the sucker off - don't complain to me about it!)

America got through the late 1960s and early 1970s (CCR's time), so maybe I shouldn't worry. I don't believe that though. America was by far the most economically powerful country in the world, and our problems were not existential - threatening our existence in the pretty short run - as they are now.

Now, that's no way to end the week on good cheer! So, just listen to CCR's Ramble Tamble, off their 51 year-ago-released 5th album Cosmo's Factory. All of the band's excellent, catchy, and popular music until this album had consisted of short (2 - 3 minute) songs with regular verses and choruses. They could all be played safely on AM radio. The 11 minute long version of Marvin Gaye's Heard it through the Grapevine and this one were of a different sort, more appropriate for the time, I suppose. You'd put your ass on the line playing this one on AM.

I had this one in my head after having a run-in with a Kung Flu hysteric and later a park ranger on the road during our vacation. We've got lots of problems. How long can we run from them? "Oooh, oooh, down the road I go."



Just as a footnote, Creedence Clearwater Revival was an amazing band. The 4 of them made so much great music in only 4 years! (That was 1968 through 1972.) Just look at the list of songs on Cosmo's Factory. There's not one piece of mediocre filler in there. (3 others besides Marvin Gaye's song were written by others too, BTW.)

Side One:
1. "Ramble Tamble" 7:09
2. "Before You Accuse Me" 3:24
3. "Travelin' Band" 2:07
4. "Ooby Dooby" 2:05
5. "Lookin' Out My Back Door" 2:31
6. "Run Through the Jungle" 3:09
Side Two:
1. "Up Around the Bend" 2:40
2. "My Baby Left Me" 2:17
3. "Who'll Stop the Rain" 2:28
4. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" 11:05
5. "Long As I Can See the Light" 3:33

There's gonna be more Kung Flu stupidity next week, but then, the road trip in question has generated quite a few posts that will come soon too. I want to write one more post, at least on the old-timey Commies and, dang, that 28th Amendment proposal is still at my lawyer's office! (I kid.)

Thank you all so much for reading and commenting!

Comments:
Moderator
Wednesday - August 18th 2021 9:31AM MST
PS: Peter, I hedged a little bit by claiming their "popular"" music was the short catchy stuff, but that sentence could be read a couple of ways regarding that. You are right though. "Suzy Q" was never one of my favorites, and I wonder if it got more popular via the scene with the Playboy Bunnies in "Apocalypse Now". Yes, that was pretty stupid forcing the customer to flip the 45 single in the middle, haha! That's worse than an 8-track tape. Were you perhaps supposed to buy 2 singles and stack 'em? (Remember those turntables that let you stack up to 6, and they'd drop down?)

I have heard the other 3 long ones, and so far, I haven't gotten to like any of them. I never heard a one of them on radio, though, but perhaps they were played during those early days of FM.

Anyway, thanks for the correction.

BTW, I do remember the title "Zanz Can't Dance" (J. Fogerty solo?) but had no idea what that was about.
PeterIke
Wednesday - August 18th 2021 5:52AM MST
PS
"All of the band's excellent, catchy, and popular music until this album had consisted of short (2 - 3 minute) songs"

Nuh uh.

On their very first album, they famously produced "Suzie Q," a song that clocks in at 8:37. They even released it as a single with half on one side and half on the other (really stupid idea).

Their second album has "Graveyard Train" (8:35) and "Keep on Chooglin'" (7:40).

Third album has no songs over 5 minutes, but fourth album again has "Effigy" (6:27).

Extended jam songs were part of CCR's schtick right from the start, though they perfected the art in "Heard It Through the Grapevine."

"but unfortunately the band had signed away their song rights forever to a (((manager))) when they were young and naive."

Yes, that was Saul Zaentz. Fogerty wrote a song about it, "Zanz Kant Danz." Lyrics:

"Vanz can't dance, but he'll steal your money / Watch him, or he'll rob you blind."

That whole chapter in American life -- Jewish managers stealing from musical artists, especially blacks -- has been largely scrubbed from the American consciousness, though it was extremely common.
The Alarmist
Tuesday - August 17th 2021 3:19AM MST
PS

@Mr. Moderator, the first serious infestation of communists in American government was under FDR. Tailgunner Joe McCarthy had them dead to rights, and for that he was forever besmirched. Fortunately we still had Dick Nixon, and for his early successes against the commies in our government the leftists would try to oust him from the Presidency, but they only succeeded in getting rid of Nixon when the US dragged its feet on re-supplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Watergate was a ruse for a bigger plot behind the scenes.

Academia and media had already been overrun by communists by 1974, but after Nixon, the floodgates were opened for communists to flow into all levels of government, including education, the courts, and big business.

CCR’s demise was not the death knell for America’s halcyon days... that would be the advent of Glitter Rock and Disco.

Build Kabul Back Better
Sunday - August 15th 2021 8:20PM MST
PS I do not believe in communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the communists in this country; several of the best friends I have got are communists.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
MBlanc46
Sunday - August 15th 2021 1:04PM MST
PS Mod: The Commies—the real Commies—got in during the Roosevelt administration. Joe McCarthy wasn’t wrong. It was the New Left—some old-line Commies, but more and more identity grievance haters and destroyers, that infiltrated from the 1960s.
Moderator
Sunday - August 15th 2021 12:28PM MST
PS: LOMBD, thanks for writing in. As a youngster (way before any internet around to look every last thing up), I was under the impression that CCR was a Southern band. I think a lot of people were. That's likely just due to the music they wrote and/or played, including "Born on the Bayou", "Jambalaya" (Hank Williams song but CCR did a great job), "Proud Mary", etc.
Moderator
Sunday - August 15th 2021 12:25PM MST
PS: Correction for Mainlander. You're thinking of the Doobie Brothers, right? They are right on up there with the best bands of the era also.

Robert, I don't know. I gave it a listen. Yeah, the cover art is good, haha!

Mr. Blanc, I see that time (CCR's time) as the first serious infestation of the Commies into the American institutions. Yeah, what looked like the end of it, was just a reprieve during the Reagan era (especially) and right on through the mid-1990s, IMO. I agree that Globalism started during that time - maybe the H.W. Bush time, but it could go back a few years from there. Are the two (Globalism and Communism*) connected? Glad you like the music!

* At least the way I've been defining it.
rockhound
Sunday - August 15th 2021 9:46AM MST
PS
Just selling some more records might have helped a bit, but unfortunately the band had signed away their song rights forever to a (((manager))) when they were young and naive.
MBlanc46
Sunday - August 15th 2021 9:24AM MST
PS CCR is one band that PS and I are in complete agreement on. They were certainly one of my favorite bands of the era. So far as your statement that the US survived the 1960s and 1970s goes, it’s correct in that the regime didn’t fall, and the place didn’t collapse immediately into total chaos. The Titanic survived the initial collision with the iceberg, too. But both were holed below the waterline. While it superficially appeared that sanity had returned in the 1980s, it was actually the real beginning of globalism, which is the principal cause of current conditions. The alignment of the Left (in the guise of the Clintons) with globalism in the early 1990s sealed the deal. The former USA is well and truly over. What can be salvaged of Western civilization in North America remains to be seen.
Lookin' Out My Back Door
Saturday - August 14th 2021 10:24PM MST
PS Just found a Doug Clifford solo album from 1972 and it isn't bad, labeled as Southern Rock but is several styles.

"Music is our secret society."

Louis Armstrong
Mainlander
Saturday - August 14th 2021 9:57PM MST
PS An amazing band. 'Listen to the Music' is a top 10 all time song for me
Robert
Saturday - August 14th 2021 9:18PM MST
PS: Re: 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'

My favorite version (well, maybe only for the cover art) is by the all-female group 'the slits' (and yes, your dirty mind is correct about the name):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHHEHIoZMuY

My girlfriend at the time threw out the 'mud' album. NSFW.

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