ABSTRACT
Fogerty’s best songs present imaginative characters and resonant themes-“Born on the Bayou,” “Proud Mary,” and “Green River.” However, several songs focus, it seems, almost exclusively on character. “Porterville” and “Graveyard Train” may raise questions about injustice and guilt, but primarily they are about the characters, particularly the singers of the songs. Sometimes the “I” or the persona of the song gives Fogerty free expressive reign while concealing himself and avoiding any tone of self-righteousness (e.g., “Bootleg” and perhaps most jeremiads)—although rock audiences at the time were unlikely to accuse their singer-spokespersonartists of being self-righteous. Sometimes, too, there is no mistaking the “I” for Fogerty (e.g., “Wrote a Song for Everyone” and “Someday Never Comes”). In several songs of 1969, including “Tombstone Shadow,” “Lodi,” “Feelin’ Blue,” and “Cross-Tie Walker,” the strength of the lyrics depends on the characters, perhaps their morbid obsessions, their disappointments, or their restlessness.
