Fortunate Son

Released in September 1969 on a single with Down on the Corner, it reached No. 14 on its own, and the pair together peaked at No. 3 in December. Fogerty said it took about twenty minutes to write. He was thinking of the circle around Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower, and of hearing about the son of this senator or that congressman who had been given a deferment. In his view the song speaks more to the unfairness of class than to war itself.

The band played it on The Ed Sullivan Show on 16 November 1969. It entered the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2013, and Rolling Stone ranked it No. 99 on its 2004 and 2010 lists and No. 227 on its 2020 list. Pitchfork put it at No. 17 among the 200 greatest songs of the 1960s. Wrangler used it in advertising from 2000 until Fogerty complained to the Los Angeles Times in 2002.

Live and covers

Fogerty played it at the White House Salute to the Troops on 6 November 2014, the same month Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and the Zac Brown Band performed it at the Concert for Valor. Johnny Hallyday made a French version, Fils de personne, in 1971 that reached No. 4 in France. U2, Springsteen, Kid Rock, the Dropkick Murphys and Wyclef Jean have also recorded it.

On film

Doug Clifford, who served in the Coast Guard Reserve from 1966 to 1968, has said that the song is really not an anti-war song but one about class and who did the dirty work. Pitchfork's Zach Schonfeld wrote in 2018 that Creedence became a cliche of Vietnam films. Executive music producer Joel Sill chose Fortunate Son for Forrest Gump in 1994, and Fogerty objected, because he did not want his music used if Saul Zaentz would profit from it. Sill said the licensing was valid and the song stayed in the film.