Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR for short) is arguably one of the most famous bands ever to grace the late 1960s and early ‘70s musical stage.
The band hit the Top 40 music scene many times during their heyday and even managed to play at Woodstock in 1969, although they played into dawn’s early light in front of a giant herd of well-medicated hippies, most of whom were passed out at the time.
CCR broke up many decades ago, but their music has a permanent place in the hearts and minds of most baby boomers because their tunes were the soundtrack of their youth, including us here at MyStarCollectorCar.
Jim Sutherland
Creedence had a large body of music, some of which fit the road tune category for every music device at the time, ranging from AM radio to FM radio, and including the troublesome 8-track players found in cars during CCR’s peak popularity in pop music during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Some Creedence songs fit better than others on a road trip, so MyStarCollector decided to compile our own list of five solid CCR road tunes that made the journey a lot cooler in our opinion. Bear in mind our choices are not in descending or ascending order of importance because we believe all the CCR quintet of tunes are worthy of the top shelf.
The first road tune on our CCR road tune list is ‘Keep on Chooglin’, a 1969 album song that was never destined to make a big dent in the Top 40 charts for the band. The song has an interesting guitar introduction that is neither slow nor fast and is a solid foundation for low-and-slow cruising in a classic custom ride.
Custom vehicles make their statement via the visual route, so their owners are comfortable with low-speed passes because their rides are just that cool. ‘Keep on Chooglin’ may be a song with subtle sexual overtones but it fits easily onto MyStarCollectorCar’s list of CCR car songs.
The second addition to our list may have otherworldly lyrics but ‘It Came Out Of The Sky’ has a frenzied Chuck Berry-like guitar riff throughout the song. John Fogerty created the tune, but it is clear Fogerty listened to Berry when John was a kid.
The net result is a song that will keep drivers awake on a long driving adventure but has enough energy to earn the owner a speeding ticket along the way.
Frenzied guitar riffs and a strong potential for speeding tickets are both evident in MyStarCollectorCar’s third choice, namely ‘Commotion’, a warp drive CCR song that would have severely tested a young driver’s boundaries of self-control behind the wheel of a classic muscle car during the Summer of ’69 if he had just bought the ‘Green River’ 8-track.
This CCR tune would have prompted an extremely difficult challenge for a young car guy to keep his foot out of the gas pedal in a 60’s-era muscle car.
No Creedence road tune list would be complete unless it includes our fourth choice: ‘Up Around The Bend’, mainly because car guys think in those terms whenever they get behind the wheel of a classic car and exercise it on the road. The song embodies that urge to keep following the highway until it gets you where you need to be-no matter how many bends it takes to get to the destination.
The fifth and final member of MyStarCollectorCar’s esteemed list of Creedence road tunes is ‘Ramble Tamble’, another album song that was never a Top 40 staple for the band. The full force of the musicians in Creedence Clearwater Revival was evident in ‘Ramble Tamble’ because it was a masterful blend of guitar work, but it also had very strong drum work.
‘Ramble Tamble’ flew out of the gate in a blaze of glory but intentionally lost steam in the middle before building back momentum later in the song. The net result was a driving tune that imitated the ups and downs of long trips in a car, whether from steep grades or mechanical issues. The song’s abrupt change in tempo and subsequent return to a faster tempo makes it a musical happy ending for car guys.
As mentioned earlier, we at MyStarCollectorCar were always big CCR fans, even more so because they had so many driving songs in their library.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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