Song 181: “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
11/3/20250 min
This episode, we look at the song “Proud Mary” and the brief but productive career of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.
Patreon backers also have a forty-four-minute bonus episode available, on “Mendocino” by the Sir Douglas Quintet.
Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/.
ERRATUM: Three times early on I talk about a 1940s label...
Transcript
15 sentencesAndrew Hickey· Host0:00
[singing] A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey. Song 181, Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Before we begin, I need to explain a choice made later in the episode. As longtime listeners will know, I do not use slurs on this podcast, but Creedence Clearwater Revival present a problem for this policy. For several years before choosing that name, they recorded under another name, the name of a type of children's doll patterned after blackface minstrelsy. Now, that term is not really known in America, but in the UK it is both the name of that type of doll and a racial slur against people of color. The word is widely used among older generations without intention of offense to refer to the dolls, but it's generally censored or bowdlerized in mainstream media these days. Terms like golly doll are used instead of the word in question. And to give an idea of how the word is viewed by younger people who are aware of its connotations, when I mentioned this problem without mentioning the word on a social media site where my followers are mostly around my own age or slightly younger, some of the replies I got included, "Looks at Creedence Wiki page. They called themselves the what?" "Regrets looking at Wiki." "Oh, I never knew that. I wonder what it was." "Googles. Jesus Christ."