Mardi Gras

Made after Tom Fogerty left, it let all three remaining members write and sing. John Fogerty wrote Lookin' for a Reason, Someday Never Comes and Sweet Hitch-Hiker and sang them, along with a cover of Hello Mary Lou, a song Gene Pitney wrote for Ricky Nelson. Stu Cook wrote and sang Take It Like a Friend, Sail Away and Door to Door. Doug Clifford wrote and sang Tearin' Up the Country and What Are You Gonna Do, and sang Need Someone to Hold. Someday Never Comes, backed with Clifford's Tearin' Up the Country, reached the US top 40.

The album reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200 and was still the band's seventh consecutive gold studio album. Jon Landau of Rolling Stone called it the worst album he had ever heard from a major rock band, measured against what the group had done before. Michael Oldfield of Melody Maker said that Sweet Hitch-Hiker was the only cut that sounded like Creedence. That song, which the trio had released as a single in July 1971, closes the album. Fogerty later wrote that the results of the new democratic approach were, to put it mildly, underwhelming. The trio then toured the US for two months, and the band announced its breakup on 16 October 1972.