John Fogerty's Song 'Fortunate Son'

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“Some folks are born made to wave the flag” John Fogerty wrote his famous song, “Fortunate Son” in 1969 as lead singer and lead guitarist of blues-rock four-man band, “Creedence Clearwater Revival”. These particular lyrics written by Fogerty reflect aspects of his ideas, attitudes and values towards life during the 1960’s. The 1960’s were times of turmoil and transformation in one of the biggest periods of change in US history (MacMillan, 2014). During this decade, it was common for artists to write songs protesting political issues. The most common issues that were written about were demonstrated in the lines from the songs and were often referring to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the escalation of the Vietnam War and the forward progress of…show more content…
These men were not born into wealth nor have any privilege to protect them; there is a substantial chance of them being drafted to fight and possibly die in the seemingly senseless Vietnam War. Fogerty protests by singing, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son...” and in the next verse “I ain’t no millionaire’s son…”. This is to argue that it is the “senators” and “millionaires”, the fathers of the fortunate sons who got America caught up in the jungles of Vietnam, but it is in fact the unfortunate sons who have to put their life on the line to serve. John was the same age as the soldiers serving in Vietnam and in the same class as them. He was the perfect candidate to fight in war, regardless of him being against the policy and war, and was eventually drafted into the United States Military Reserves in 1965 at the age of 20. Four years later, “Creedence Clearwater Revival” released their fourth album, “Willy and the Poor Boys”, which according to Rolling Stones Magazine was “the best one yet.” The album of 10 tracks contained three political impact songs, “Fortunate Son” being one of
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