The first double A-side to appear in this list does an
excellent job of summarising the two and possibly contradictory impulses which informed
rock music in the seventies – the optimistically celebratory, and the
pessimistically reflective. Yes, “Travelin’ Band” is essentially “Long Tall
Sally” – an out-of-court legal settlement at the time confirmed that – but it
is an electrifying rock ‘n’ roll record, Fogerty damning the winds of unwarranted
change as he sings about being on the road as something to be happy and joyful
about, which in the seventies would prove to be a rarity. Powered by the band
in peak form, Fogerty howls about state militia and flying to gigs, giving
flight and touchdown the same beneficent futurism that Chuck Berry gave to “Promised
Land.” In so doing, he and CCR set a template for knowledgeable back-to-basics
which would unpredictably come home to roost in the British glam-rock boom (Roy
Wood’s Fogerty impression on The Move’s “California Man” was an early
indicator, and where do you think Brian Johnson, of Geordie then AC/DC, got it
from?).
But the flipside indicates that this surface elation does
not come without a dark and ongoing backstory. “Who’ll Stop The Rain” is one of
the great American popular songs, and in managing to convey a kaleidoscopic
view of rock ‘n’ roll, its performance and reception, and the future tunnel to
hell, in barely two-and-a-half minutes, it completely trumps “American Pie”;
whereas McLean sings of 1959 (which at the time he wrote and recorded it was
only about a dozen years before) as “a long, long time ago,” Fogerty can sing “As
long as I remember” and convince you that he remembers everything that has ever
happened. His voice bears the indelible power of the powerless; he knows the
boat is sinking (cf. Cohen’s “Everybody Knows”) and also that he is in no
position to do anything about it. But the band burns through a quarter of a
century’s worth of worthwhile traits in popular music; no rock music this side
of The Band and that side of R.E.M. (and The Mekons) achieved quite the same
balance of thrust and patience. CCR perform the song like a band possessed –
particularly Doug Clifford’s near-demonic drumming – with the cautious
confidence, underpinned by a dutiful dread, that they could carry on playing this song, and the rain continue to
pour, for ever.
Date Record Made
Number Two: 7 March 1970
Number Of Weeks At
Number Two: 2
Record At Number One: “Bridge
Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel
UK Chart Position: 8
(only “Travelin’ Band” listed as an A-side)
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