Greg Brown

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John Fogerty talks about the highs and lows of songwriting

John Fogerty admits he still hits the same songwriting highs and lows as he did back in his Creedence Clearwater Revival days. Fogerty, whose joint “Blues & Bayous” tour with ZZ Top is already barnstorming across North America, features Fogerty and Billy F. Gibbons performing their new single “Holy Grail,” which was released last Friday (June 8th).

With over 50 years worth of classics that have become embodiments of post-war American culture, Pulse asked Fogerty how he comes to terms with writing the songs we all live by: “Well, I’m very proud of that — and I’m obviously the songwriter — and when you’re able to create something from nothing it’s very special, it’s also quite mystical. Whenever I start up again and start writing, I always have to go through this same process and it’s frustrating and anxiety-ridden. Meaning, when you try and start to write then the first stuff you do is really crap. And then you do some more stuff — and it’s really crap. But you gotta to keep sitting down as if you’ve have a day job at this every day and you’re doing this job, which is writing songs, for days and days and days — sometimes months.”

Fogerty went on to explain that when the muse and the groove come together – like it did for “Fortunate Son” – it’s an almost otherworldly experience: “It was just the happiest of things that that first line was ‘Some folks are born…  and then I said something. That gave me a way of accessing the next thought in the next verse. Where did that come from? I don’t know. And I didn’t know it was comin.’ But, the fact that it did that afternoon when I did that, for ‘Fortunate Son,’ it meant that I was just flyin’! All the stuff just changed. That one took about 20 minutes.”
John Fogerty and ZZ Top perform tonight at Ravinia!

 

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