Album: Willy and The Poor Boys
Year: 1969
One of John Fogerty’s heaviest and most passionate songs, “Fortunate Son” is also a song that has not aged even a whit in the 40 years since it first burst out of Willy and The Poor Boys.
Which sucks. Because you want songs about economic disparity and how the rich take advantage of their privilege to get out of military service in a way that the poor never ever can to feel completely anachronistic. No such luck.
As always, the music on “Fortunate Son” is clean and simple, with only the most perfunctory of riffs. Cos Fogerty — who was drafted in 1966 — didn’t want anybody to miss his righteous anger:
Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue
And when the band plays, “Hail To The Chief”
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, LordIt ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no senator’s son, son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no fortunate one, no
On Willy and the Poor Boys, “Fortunate Son” is sparse and skeletal, an electric folk protest song that could easily been just Fogerty and an acoustic guitar. And it’s great just like that, I love the live versions even more.
Sped up by anger and energy, the live versions of “Fortunate Son” become something else: an proto-punk song with nearly as much power as The Stooges or the MC5, and a clear antecedent to what The Clash would be doing just a few years later. Check the version on The Concert: it absolutely crackles with righteous rage.
“Fortunate Son” performed live at the Royal Albert Hall, 1970