Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son
About The Song
This is an antiestablishment song of defiance and blue-collar pride, both anti-Washington and against the Vietnam War. John Fogerty and Doug Clifford both enlisted in the Army Reserves in 1966 (to avoid being drafted and shipped to Vietnam) and were discharged in 1968 after serving their military commitments. “The song speaks more to the unfairness of class than war itself,” Fogerty said. “It’s the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them.”
This song spoke out against the war in Vietnam but was supportive of the soldiers fighting there. Like many CCR fans, most of the soldiers came from the working class and were there because they didn’t have connections that could get them out. The song is sung from the perspective of one of these men, who ends up fighting because he is not a “senator’s son.”
The song reached number 14 on the United States charts on November 22, 1969, the week before Billboard changed its methodology on double-sided hits. The tracks combined to climb to number 9 the next week, on the way to peaking at number 3 three more weeks later, on 20 December 1969
