413. Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Cosmo's Factory"

 


Creedence was the original Just Us Guys band.  This album is named for the warehouse in Berkeley where they practiced.  The cover shot looks like you just walked in on some bros passing a joint around.  And the songs are such serious beer commercial Rock that they've become an indelible part of the collective consciousness.

How about starting off an album with a 7-minute song that's mostly a (kind of boring) jam?  Sure, why not.  Then a cover song.  Then let's unleash one monster hit after another.  Man, when John Fogerty got on one the man could write the fuck out of a song.  "Lookin' Out My Back Door," "Run Through the Jungle," "Up Around the Bend," "Who'll Stop the Rain," and "Long As I Can See the Light" are all on this album.  Can you imagine?  

There's also a (very not boring) 11-minute cover of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" that I dare you to listen to and not do the air-drum-crash-cymbal motion to.  John Fogerty always denied that the trippy imagery of "Back Door" was about drugs; he said he wrote it for his at-the-time 3 year old son, Josh.  (As it happens, Josh grew up to play bass in a self-described "rock and roll and electric blues band" called the Delta Dogs.)

For my money, "Run Through the Jungle," a dark, foreboding song, is the best song on here, though.  Like everyone else, I assumed it was about Vietnam but Fogerty has said it's actually about the proliferation of guns in America.  And this was in 1970!  (I would be remiss if I did not direct you to the Gun Club's excellent and somehow even darker cover.)

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