Uploaded October 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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Nolan Randall playing the guitar solo of “Born On The Bayou” by Creedence Clearwater Revival from their 1969 album Bayou Country for Fantasy Records.
Words and music by John Fogerty
When I was just a little boy
Standin' to my daddy's knee
My papa said "Son, don't let the man get you
And do what he done to me?
'Cause he'll get you
'Cause he'll get ya now, now"
And I can remember the Fourth of July
Runnin' through the backwood bay
I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Lord, lord
Wish I were back on the bayou
Rollin' with some Cajun queen
Wishin' I were a fast freight train
A-just a-choogling on down to New Orleans
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Do it, do it, do it, do it
And I can remember the Fourth of July
Runnin' through the backwood bay
And I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou, Lord, Lord
Born on the bayou
Alright, do
Do it, do it, do it, do it
*Song Facts*
"Born on the Bayou" is the first track on Creedence Clearwater Revival's second album, Bayou Country (1969). It was released as the B-side of the single "Proud Mary" that reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts. The song was covered by Little Richard.
Songwriter John Fogerty set the song in the South, despite neither having lived nor widely traveled there. He commented: "'Born on the Bayou' was vaguely like 'Porterville', about a mythical childhood and a heat-filled time, the Fourth of July. I put it in the swamp where, of course, I had never lived. It was late as I was writing. I was trying to be a pure writer, no guitar in hand, visualizing and looking at the bare walls of my apartment. Tiny apartments have wonderful bare walls, especially when you can't afford to put anything on them. 'Chasing down a hoodoo'. Hoodoo is a magical, mystical, spiritual, non-defined apparition, like a ghost or a shadow, not necessarily evil, but certainly other-worldly. I was getting some of that imagery from Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters."
Hoodoo was the name of a 1976 solo album by John Fogerty that he never released. By his own account, it was terrible. A couple of singles leaked out, though. Unfortunately for Fogerty, at least one ("You've got the Magic") can be found on YouTube.
"Born on the Bayou," "Proud Mary," and "Choolgin'" were all connected in Fogerty's mind. In Bad Moon Rising, he said: "I was writing these at night, and I remember that Bobby Kennedy got killed during this time. I saw that late at night. They kept showing it over and over. 'Bayou' and 'Proud Mary' and 'Chooglin' were all kind of cooking at that time. I'd say that was when the whole swamp bayou myth was born—right there in a little apartment in El Cerrito. It was late at night and I was probably delirious from lack of sleep. I remember that I thought it would be cool if these songs cross-referenced each other. Once I was doing that, I realized that I was kind of working on a mythical place."
In Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" issue, John Fogerty explained that "Born On The Bayou" originated when Creedence Clearwater Revival were booked at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom in 1968. Said Fogerty: "We were the #7 act on the bill, bottom of the totem pole. And as the first guys to go on, we were the last to soundcheck before they opened the doors. It was like, 'Here's the drums, boom, boom; here's the guitar, clank, clank.' I looked over at the guys and said, 'Hey, follow this!' Basically, it was the riff and the attitude of 'Born on the Bayou,' without the words."
"Born on the Bayou" was the first song Creedence played in their set at Woodstock in 1969. They were a big part of the festival, performing 11 songs on the second day. The band first hit the stage at 3:30 am when the majority of the Woodstock crowd was zonked out. Fogerty recalled: "We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn ... there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud. And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: A quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic [lighter], and in the night I hear, 'Don't worry about it, John. We're with you.' I played the rest of the show for that guy."
"Bon on the Bayou" is an example of "swamp rock", a genre associated with John Fogerty, Little Feat/Lowell George, The Band, J.J. Cale and Tony Joe White. The guitar setting for the intro is over-driven with amp tremolo on a slow setting; Fogerty used a Gibson ES-175 (which was stolen from his car soon after recording this track).
#CreedenceClearwaterRevival #BornOnTheBayou #RootsRock
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Nolan Randall playing the guitar solo of “Born On The Bayou” by Creedence Clearwater Revival from their 1969 album Bayou Country for Fantasy Records.
Words and music by John Fogerty
When I was just a little boy
Standin' to my daddy's knee
My papa said "Son, don't let the man get you
And do what he done to me?
'Cause he'll get you
'Cause he'll get ya now, now"
And I can remember the Fourth of July
Runnin' through the backwood bay
I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Lord, lord
Wish I were back on the bayou
Rollin' with some Cajun queen
Wishin' I were a fast freight train
A-just a-choogling on down to New Orleans
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Do it, do it, do it, do it
And I can remember the Fourth of July
Runnin' through the backwood bay
And I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou, Lord, Lord
Born on the bayou
Alright, do
Do it, do it, do it, do it
*Song Facts*
"Born on the Bayou" is the first track on Creedence Clearwater Revival's second album, Bayou Country (1969). It was released as the B-side of the single "Proud Mary" that reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts. The song was covered by Little Richard.
Songwriter John Fogerty set the song in the South, despite neither having lived nor widely traveled there. He commented: "'Born on the Bayou' was vaguely like 'Porterville', about a mythical childhood and a heat-filled time, the Fourth of July. I put it in the swamp where, of course, I had never lived. It was late as I was writing. I was trying to be a pure writer, no guitar in hand, visualizing and looking at the bare walls of my apartment. Tiny apartments have wonderful bare walls, especially when you can't afford to put anything on them. 'Chasing down a hoodoo'. Hoodoo is a magical, mystical, spiritual, non-defined apparition, like a ghost or a shadow, not necessarily evil, but certainly other-worldly. I was getting some of that imagery from Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters."
Hoodoo was the name of a 1976 solo album by John Fogerty that he never released. By his own account, it was terrible. A couple of singles leaked out, though. Unfortunately for Fogerty, at least one ("You've got the Magic") can be found on YouTube.
"Born on the Bayou," "Proud Mary," and "Choolgin'" were all connected in Fogerty's mind. In Bad Moon Rising, he said: "I was writing these at night, and I remember that Bobby Kennedy got killed during this time. I saw that late at night. They kept showing it over and over. 'Bayou' and 'Proud Mary' and 'Chooglin' were all kind of cooking at that time. I'd say that was when the whole swamp bayou myth was born—right there in a little apartment in El Cerrito. It was late at night and I was probably delirious from lack of sleep. I remember that I thought it would be cool if these songs cross-referenced each other. Once I was doing that, I realized that I was kind of working on a mythical place."
In Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs" issue, John Fogerty explained that "Born On The Bayou" originated when Creedence Clearwater Revival were booked at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom in 1968. Said Fogerty: "We were the #7 act on the bill, bottom of the totem pole. And as the first guys to go on, we were the last to soundcheck before they opened the doors. It was like, 'Here's the drums, boom, boom; here's the guitar, clank, clank.' I looked over at the guys and said, 'Hey, follow this!' Basically, it was the riff and the attitude of 'Born on the Bayou,' without the words."
"Born on the Bayou" was the first song Creedence played in their set at Woodstock in 1969. They were a big part of the festival, performing 11 songs on the second day. The band first hit the stage at 3:30 am when the majority of the Woodstock crowd was zonked out. Fogerty recalled: "We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn ... there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud. And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: A quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic [lighter], and in the night I hear, 'Don't worry about it, John. We're with you.' I played the rest of the show for that guy."
"Bon on the Bayou" is an example of "swamp rock", a genre associated with John Fogerty, Little Feat/Lowell George, The Band, J.J. Cale and Tony Joe White. The guitar setting for the intro is over-driven with amp tremolo on a slow setting; Fogerty used a Gibson ES-175 (which was stolen from his car soon after recording this track).
#CreedenceClearwaterRevival #BornOnTheBayou #RootsRock
