We Want to Hear Some American Music

Sometimes when I am bored I watch the music video for Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.” It’s an overplayed song – it’s shorthand for “The ‘60s” and “protest music” and a bunch of other Boomer-related things we’ve all heard enough about to last a lifetime. But I still love that song and I still love that video. 

Of course there was no music video when the song was released in 1969 – this one was made in 2018 to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary. And, to give you a short synopsis of the drama between those band members – one is dead, two perform in a glorified tribute band and the leader, John Fogerty, is a special type of rock ‘n’ roll control freak who is always fighting with his former bandmates, record label, or pretty much anyone else in the music business. Suffice it to say, they didn’t reunite for the video. 

So, in its place is one cut after another of everyday people – skateboarding, dancing, riding horses, cooking, eating, laughing. And driving. Lots of driving. There are Hispanic Americans, Black Americans, White Americans, veterans, freaks, cowboys, punks, men and women. People being people and doing American shit. The real shit. 

I love that video. I watch it all the time. 

“Fortunate Son” is two minutes and 17 seconds and it packs a lot of punch into that short runtime. There are three verses and here is what they say: The first verse says that a lot of patriotic people are full of shit and they want you to pay the tab. The second verse says a lot of rich people don’t want to pay their fair share. The third verse says for these folks too much is never enough. 

The chorus says, in short. That ain’t me. And in saying that, it asks the question – is that you? I bet it ain’t you, either. As George Carlin used to say about the powerful people who run this country – ”it’s a big club and you ain’t in it.” 

So, which club are you in?

Welcome, friend. Glad you made it.   

One of the reasons “Fortunate Son” remains such an eternally effective protest song is clear in the video. There are no politicians. No propaganda. No ideology. Just people. Americans. Doing American shit. Being cool. Being the coolest. 

Protesting is all well and good. Resisting is fine. But for my money I’ve always liked the word defiance a little better. I will survive. I will get by. I will keep becoming. I will keep moving. Americans are good at this, even though I think we’ve forgotten that we are good at this. I think this is a bipartisan virtue, by the way. You may love your preferred political party, but, objectively, they don’t love ya back. But, if you’re lucky, someone else might.  

Fogerty was well-primed to write that song. He grew up the child of alcoholics in El Cerrito, Cali. He was drafted to serve in Vietnam in 1966, but an empathetic recruiter backdated his U.S. Army Reserve paperwork and saved him from the front lines. He served for several years before being honorably discharged and starting Creedence. I will survive. I will get by. I will keep becoming. I will keep moving.

There are other songs that have a similar spirit without being overtly political. “Promised Land” by Chuck Berry comes to mind – the story of the “poor boy” trying to make his way from across the country to California. There are references to segregation and Civil Rights dotted through the song. 

We had motor trouble it turned into a struggle halfway across Alabam'
And that 'hound broke down and left us all stranded in downtown Birmingham

Somebody help me get out of Louisiana just help me get to Houston town
There are people there who care a little 'bout me, and they won't let the poor boy down

Elvis Presley liked to perform “Promised Land” in his later years, and it would be exceedingly hard to believe the man who paid Jackie Wilson’s medical bills after he suffered a stroke and who was mocked by his more privileged high school classmates for wearing clothing like his favorite local Black R&B artists when flattops and gingham shirts were the style didn’t understand the lyrics very, very well. 

That brings our little road trip to Memphis, and I think it’s important to stop here on the banks of the Mississippi River for a moment and reflect on some things that are good about American Music. 

Writing about Elvis and the complex history of music and race in this country would take up the rest of this essay and spill into a book, so I will save that for another day. But suffice it to say, I think Elvis has gotten a raw deal in our history and deserves to be reappraised. 

So, instead I’ll take you to Stax Records on McLemore Ave., where Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper hooked up with Al Jackson and Booker T. Jones to form Booker T. & The MGs – one of the funkiest bands that ever existed. Dunn and Cropper were White. Jackson and Jones were Black. Together, they backed all of your favorite R&B and soul singers from the ‘60s and scored more than a few instrumental hits of their own. You could head a little farther south to Muscle Shoals and find the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who finally gave Aretha Franklin the backing band she deserved – a bunch of ruddy-faced White boys from the country playing deep in the groove. 

Politicians on both sides love to use all of this music – Creedence and Sam & Dave and the rest – but they don’t know anything about it at all. Academics love to pick apart this music but they never felt a note of it. Because this music is an exchange. It’s why The Texas Tornados sound so good in a dancehall on a hot night in San Antonio and why Jimi Hendrix gets something out of “All Along the Watchtower” that Bob Dylan never did, even though he wrote it. This land, friends, was made for you and me. 

It ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son
It ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son
It ain’t me, I ain’t no military son

Early punk rockers and New Wavers, bored with Yes and Pink Floyd, picked up on this, which is why Ramones fit so perfectly into this throughline. It’s why The Blasters wrote the song “American Music.” 

Well, it's a howl from the deserts
A scream from the slums
The Mississippi rollin'
To the beat of the drums
They wanna hear some American music
American music
They wanna hear that sound
Right from the U.S.A

There have been those who have stolen, pillaged and disrespected this exchange, no doubt, although the most egregious offenders that come to mind for me are Europeans like Led Zeppelin, who outright stole riffs and songwriting credits. There are always some scoundrels ready to ruin a good thing and they walk among us. Oh! The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fake funksters direct from Hollywood. There ya go. There are plenty more. 

But the people that get this really get it and they treat the beauty that is American Music with a deep, deep reverence. Because they understand the joy, the curiosity and the defiance that it represents. Music comes from the spirit through the fingers and the throat and jumps down deep in your soul. That’s a special thing. It is, to be honest with you, my favorite thing. 

This music is your music. It takes many forms and many sounds, but it is your gift to the world and to humanity itself, you American so and so. Los Lobos and Descendents and The Cars and Wu-Tang Clan and Prince and Nirvana and Big Star and that band you love that used to play at your favorite bar down the block. Almost everywhere you go in the world they want to hear some American music, right from the U.S.A. 

America has its problems, I’ll give you that – I do think systemic racism is a real problem that keeps people from achieving their dreams. The police need to stop killing Black people. Our food supply is toxic and tainted dogshit, which is wild considering how plentiful and agricultural this country is. Healthcare, medicine and pharmaceuticals are at the mercy of big business, which means people die that shouldn’t die. And on and on. I see it. I am here, too. 

But when you get fed up on all of that – when you are so sick because you can’t look away from the algorithm and all your political theory and hopes and dreams are deflating like a whoopee cushion at a sad little retirement party, I believe there are two things you can do for yourself. One, you can get outside and look around. Want to know what there is to love about this country? It’s the mountains, the rivers, the shorelines, the forests, the prairies and the oceans. Drink in as much of them as you can, because they are slipping away, too. And notice your neighbors, even the shitty ones. The crotchety old vet with a Trump flag and undiagnosed PTSD. The family that blasts music until late in the night while they party in their garage. Whoever it is on your block or in your building. You’re all in the same club.

The other thing you can do is turn on some music while you do it. Some badass, rhythm-driven American music – whatever type you like. It doesn’t have to be “Fortunate Son,” but pick something that is from somewhere. Not that generic, mass-marketed pop star sap that keeps getting shoved down your throat. It takes so much marketing money to make that stuff palatable, just like the bad food. They’ll never get it.

Pick something that started in a garage or a bedroom or a front porch or wherever. Pick something from El Cerrito or Macon or Gainesville or Minneapolis or Queens or East L.A. or Seattle or Memphis or New Orleans. Shit, write your own damn song. If you don’t like rock ‘n’ roll like I do, play some hip-hop or jazz or country music or Tejano. Something I noticed years ago was how good all of that music sounds played together. Mix it up. 

Neither of these ideas will solve your problems. They will not fix our current political situation. Art, no matter what anyone tells you, doesn’t really change the world all that much, at least in the short term. But you will feel just a little more alive. And take that for all it’s worth because it’s pretty damn great to be alive. 

The songwriter Harlan Howard once said that “country music was three chords and the truth,” and even though I think Nashville strayed away from that idea a long time ago, he’s generally right about American Music. The good stuff – The stuff that you really want – is home cooking. There are lots of different flavors, variations and styles and dishes, but it all tastes good coming out of that Big Ol’ pot. 

We are so locked up in political propaganda these days we can’t see in front of our faces and some days it just drives me so crazy to see people wrap their entire concept of what it means to be an American in our stupid government or whatever problem is dominating the 24-hour news cycle today. They just keep you in that endless loop of bullshit.  

That stuff exists and deserves some of your time, no doubt. I’m not telling you to tune out. I’m telling you to tune in. It’s the land. It’s the people. It’s the food. The government remains hopelessly lost. I’m not a deep student of history, but from what I can tell the people running this country have been screwing things up (both parties), mightily, since almost day one. The big businesses have been worse. But walk down a New York City street with A Love Supreme in your headphones. Drive across Texas with Willie and Waylon. Roll through Chicago with Magic Sam. You get the picture. The stuff to love about America? It’s what you do with America. 

So, it’s time to wrap this little screed up. And what have I told you? I have told you that I think American Music is better than you realize. I’ve told you it pairs nicely with forward movement. I’ve told you the politicians don’t care about you. I’ve spent 2,000 words on what John Fogerty did in two minutes and 17 seconds. 

So, I’ll end this essay where I started it – on that “Fortunate Son” video. I think the best of American literature, poetry and music has that sense of individuality and defiance that those of us who aren’t millionaire, senator or military sons have inherited. We survive. We get by. We keep becoming. We keep moving. When I watch that video, I feel it. And I suppose that’s why I wrote this. 

I am reminded of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a controversial book that rolls along the same river Creedence wrote about in “Proud Mary.” Huck is in a moral crisis. He can reveal his friend Jim’s whereabouts to his “owner,” Miss Watson, in a letter and toe the era’s religious and political line. Or, he can defy all of that and do what he thinks is the right thing and protect his friend, Jim. He struggles with this, with what society tells him is his mortal soul, and then he says, “alright then, I’ll go to Hell” and tears up the letter. 

It ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son. 

We may all be eastbound and down for Hell, but God, what a soundtrack.