Bad Moon Rising

Background

"Bad Moon Rising", backed with "Lodi", was the second single Creedence Clearwater Revival released in 1969. "Bad Moon Rising" also opens the B-side of the original Green River album. The single cut peaked #2 in the USA and #1 in the UK. It was the one and only Creedence Clearwater chart topper in Britain. 

"Bad Moon Rising" was written by John Fogerty at the time when the previous single "Proud Mary" was on the radio, ie. January-February 1969. As the opening riff rolled from his fingers, a lyrical theme began to form in Fogerty's head. He got the phrase 'Bad Moon Rising' from his notebook. He didn't even know what it meant, he just liked how the words sounded. Then Fogerty remembered one of his favourite old films, a spooky, black-and-white 1941 movie called The Devil And Daniel Webster and particularly the scene where there's a devastating hurricane, furniture, trees and houses blowing around. The next morning, the farmer awakens to see devastation everywhere. Boom. All the crops of his neighbors are smashed completely into the ground and yet his crops are straight up to the sky (John Fogerty on his Twitter page, November 2011). 

Fogerty denied in an interview for British magazines in 1969 (Melody Maker, 20 September, 1969, and New Musical Express coming out on the same day) that the song was a political protest song. It was just a "beware" type of song mostly about natural catastrophes. In later years, Fogerty claimed "Bad Moon Rising" was a metaphor for the apocalypse that was going to be visited upon us. In 1969, the times seemed to be in turmoil. Martin Luther King and [US senator] Robert F Kennedy had been assassinated.

Creedence Clearwater Revival rehearsed the song in the shed at the bottom of Doug Clifford's garden before the band hit the recording studio on February 20th. Fogerty was happy with the result. He had been trying to write that kind of song for 13 years and capture the early sound they had on Sun Records. 

Equipment

"Bad Moon Rising" was the first song John Fogerty recorded with Gibson Les Paul Custom. He bought it in a little music shop on Solano Avenue in Albany, right next to El Cerrito in the Bay Area. He had an intent of doing the song on Gibson ES-175 but it got stolen out of his car in January 1969.

On "Bad Moon Rising," Fogerty used a D-to-D tuning.

Collector's notes

The "Bad Moon Rising" b/w "Lodi" single was released with a similar cover sleeve in France, Italy and Spain. It was different from the one launched in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, India, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden (Peter Koers, Green River, 1999).      

Live versions

"Bad Moon Rising" was released in April 1969. The first documented Creedence Clearwater concert with the song in the set list was held at Fillmore West in San Francisco next month. A live version of Bad Moon Rising appears on The Concert and Live in Europe albums. The number remained steadily in the concert repertoire of Creedence Clearwater until the breakup of the band in 1972. 

John Fogerty played "Bad Moon Rising" in several benefit concerts in 1987-1994, including Vets Rousing Welcome Home July 4th, 1987, where he performed the song live for the first time during his solo years. 

Since 1997 when Fogerty began regular touring, he has played "Bad Moon Rising" practically in each concert. It usually comes near to the end of the show, right before "Fortunate Son."

"Bad Moon Rising" appears on two of his live DVDs: Premonition (1998) and The Long Road Home (2006).  John Fogerty also performed an unplugged version of the song in VH1 Storytellers which was taped at the Masonic Hall, Lower Manhattan, New York in June 1997. Another extraordinary version of "Bad Moon Rising" was performed by John Fogerty and Keith Urban in CMT Crossroads in winter 2005. The flannel shirt maestro also played an acoustic version of "Bad Moon Rising" with US Army band Six-String Soldiers at North Las Vegas VA Medical Center on September 15th, 2016. 

John Fogerty performed the song at Glastonbury Festival in the UK on June 23rd, 2007. The live version was included in the Live from Glastonbury CD released by the Q magazine in July 2008. 

As an inside joke, John Fogerty usually sings the refrain in the chorus as it's usually misheard: "there's bathroom on the right" (instead of "there's a bad moon on the rise"). 

In the movies and TV series

The song has been used in a number of films:

• American Flyers (1985)

• Black Gulch 

• Blade (1998)

• Butler's Night Out (1974)

• Distant Thunder

• DTV Monster Hits 

• Love Potion (1987)

• Man of the House

• Moondance

• Mr. Woodcock

• My Fellow Americans (1996)

• My Girl (1991) 

• One Crazy Summer (1986)

• Sweet Home Alabama

• The Big Chill (1984) 

• The Midnight Hour

• Transylmania

• Twilight Zone: The Movie

The most famous scene with "Bad Moon Rising" on the backround is seen in John Landis' An American Werewolf in London which came to cinemas in 1981. 

The song is also featured in a bunch of TV series:

• Comix from Underground, episode The Fall of Little Red Riding Hood (2012)

• Crossing Jordan, episode Blue Moon (2004)

• Danville 2nd Ward Young Men, episode Advance Camp 2009 (2009)

• Dexter, episode Morning Comes (2007)

• From the Earth to the Moon, episode The Original Wives Club (1998)

• From the Earth to the Moon, episodeLe voyage dans la lun (1998)

• Gilmore Girls, episode I Solemnly Swear (2003)

• Supernatural, episode In My Time of Dying (2006)

• Supernatural, episode Devil's Trap (2006)

• Witchblade, episode Parabolic (2002)

Critical reception

"As Fogerty points out, the similarity between 'Bad Moon Rising' and early Sun recordings is remarkable. The best comparison can be found in the guitar work on Elvis's 'You're Right, I'm Left, She's Gone'. But the group is more than Fogerty's songs, vocals and lead guitar. Creedence has a tight, intense instrumental sound that is just as dynamic in person as it is on record." -Ann Moses, The New Musical Express, July 26th, 1969.  

"Bad Moon Rising" was the follow-up single to "Proud Mary"; unlike most follow-ups, this song generates as much excitement as its predecessor. Like the Beatles' "Daytripper," it is marked by a curious ambivalence. The music is joyously kinetic; it is hard to listen to it without feeling like getting up and dancing. The words are something else again. Here is paranoia, 1969 style ---"hope you got your things together/hope you are quite prepared to die." -Bruce Miroff, The Rolling Stone, October 18th, 1969. 

"Recapturing the fast, bouncy spirit, 'Bad Moon Rising' totally kicks you in the groove - while the melody is slightly more simplistic than anything else on here, it's also catastrophically infectious and seems to carry you away with it." -George Starostin. 

Fans' views

"The early rock and roll feel ... reminds me of the the first live band I ever saw at a fairground when I was 7 ... I'm sure they were playing this ... I probably thought to myself, 'all good rock bands should sound like this."

"Best R'n'R song ever with classical chords in DAG ... also tells us John's feeling about Richard Nixon's decision to run for president."

"Instantly recognizable, spooky, classic Fogerty/Creedence."

"A timeless reminder that, no matter how good things are going in life, there are always ominous signs that times can get rough at any time."

"Had to laugh out loud when it was being played in a Werewolf movie as the star was changing into the wolf."

Legacy

The Rolling Stone placed "Bad Moon Rising" at number 364 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2011.  

The 2013 remake

John Fogerty recorded a new version of the song with Zac Brown Band for his collaboration album Wrote a Song for Everyone, released in May 2013. Fogerty recalled running into the Zac Brown Band at a country award show some years back and telling the band's frontman "I'd love to pick with you one day." 

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