Bad Moon Rising

It was the lead single from Green River, released in April 1969 with Lodi on the B-side and recorded that March at Wally Heider Studios. Fogerty took the idea from the hurricane scene in the 1941 film The Devil and Daniel Webster and described it as the apocalypse that was going to be visited upon us. He said the contrast with the upbeat sound struck him only when the band learned it. He has also said, openly, that the guitar lick came from Scotty Moore's playing on Elvis Presley's I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone.

It went to No. 2 on the Hot 100 and spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK from 20 September 1969, the band's only British chart-topper. It also reached No. 1 in Ireland. Demonstrators at Berkeley's People's Park took it up. Fans mishear one line as a bathroom on the right, and Fogerty has played on that live. Rolling Stone placed it at No. 364 on its 2010 list of the 500 greatest songs. A Vietnam veteran told Fogerty in the 1990s that his squad played the song loud before going out.

Covers

Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis and Emmylou Harris are among the artists who have recorded it. Fogerty cut a version with the Zac Brown Band in 2013. It plays over a scene in An American Werewolf in London from 1981, and Sonic Youth named a 1985 album after it.