Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Down on the Corner” is today’s classic song of the day. Released as a single in October of 1969, it peaked in late December of that year at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. (CCR never had a number-one hit, if you can believe that.)
Like most CCR tunes, “Down on the Corner” was written by the band’s lead singer and guitarist, John Fogerty. The song is about a fictional jug band called Willy and the Poor Boys who, believe or not, started life in Fogerty’s mind as Winnie and the Pooh Boys. Here’s what he remembers:
“[I] was kind of inspired by seeing an advertisement in the paper one day. It was an ad from Disney that said in great big letters, ‘Winnie the Pooh’. Something in my brain said ‘Winnie the Pooh and the Pooh Boys’. Obviously, that was close to ‘Willy and the Poor Boys’. As I began to develop this idea it turned into music in that weird mystical, almost uncontrollable way, music comes to songwriters. Winnie the Pooh is still my favorite character who I’ve shared with my daughter Kelsy since the day she was born, though she’s growing out of it. But I’m not.”
“Down on the Corner” was the A side of a two-sided single. The tune on the flip side was “Fortunate Son,” a previous classic song of the day.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, Creedence Clearwater Revival playing “Down on the Corner” on the November 16, 1969, episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. Yeah, they’re lip synching; everybody did, back then.
[…] Today’s classic song of the day is a protest song from Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Fortunate Son.” It was one side of a two-sided single, the other side being “Down on the Corner.” […]