Who'll Stop the Rain (song)

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For the Heaven 17 song, see The Luxury Gap.
"Who'll Stop the Rain"
Single by Creedence Clearwater Revival
from the album Cosmo's Factory
A-side"Travelin' Band"
ReleasedJanuary 1970
Genre
Length2:29
LabelFantasy
Songwriter(s)John Fogerty
Producer(s)John Fogerty
Creedence Clearwater Revival singles chronology
"Down on the Corner"
(1969) 		"Who'll Stop the Rain"
(1970) 		"Up Around the Bend"
(1970)

"Who'll Stop the Rain" is a song written by

500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.[3]

History

Lyrically, "Who'll Stop the Rain" breaks into three verses, with a historical, recent past, and present tense approach. All three verses allude to a sense of unending malaise, pondered by "good men through the ages", "Five Year Plans and New Deals/wrapped in golden chains", and the Woodstock generation.

Musically, in contrast to the 1950s-Rock-inspired "Travelin' Band", "Who'll Stop the Rain" has more of an acoustic,

Woodstock Festival in August 1969. For his part, when asked by Rolling Stone
about the meaning of the song's lyrics, John Fogerty was quoted as saying,

Certainly, I was talking about Washington, when I wrote the song, but I remember bringing the master version of the song home and playing it. My son Josh was four years old at the time, and after he heard it, he said, 'Daddy stop the rain.' And my wife and I looked at each other and said, 'Well, not quite.'

In 2007 during a concert in Shelburne, Vermont, he said the following about the song:

Well, this next song has a bit of a fable surrounding it. A lot of folks seem to think I sang this song at Woodstock way back then. No. I was at Woodstock 1969. I think. It was a nice event. I'm a California kid. I went up there and saw a whole bunch of really nice young people. Hairy. Colorful. It started to rain, and got really muddy, and then half a million people took their clothes off! Boomer generation making its presence known, I guess. Anyway, then I went home and wrote this song.

Reception

Cash Box said that it spotlights Creedence's "originated river-rock style."[6] Record World called the single a "two-sided smash."[7]

Ultimate Classic Rock critic Bryan Wawzenek rated the lyrics of "Who'll Stop the Rain" as Fogerty's 3rd greatest, saying "It appears that he feels the efforts to solve widespread maladies are futile, whether it’s the intelligentsia, politicians or the Woodstock generation who are doing the fixing. It’s Fogerty’s most cleverly written allegory."[8]

Other versions

Bruce Springsteen occasionally performs the song. The song was a concert staple during his 1980-81 River Tour, as well as on the summer 2003 leg of the Rising Tour. Springsteen and the E Street Band opened with "Who'll Stop the Rain" whenever it was raining.[9]

When Creedence Clearwater Revival was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, Springsteen performed the song with John Fogerty. The song has also been covered by Rudy Rotta, Rod Stewart, Rise Against, Courtney Jaye, The Ventures, and Vince Neil and was included on John Fogerty's 1998 live CD/DVD Premonition. The Stereophonics have also covered the song as a B-side to their single "Local Boy in the Photograph".

Cathal Coughlan
sang on the 1985 version.

Engelbert Humperdinck included "Who'll Stop the Rain" on his 2009 album A Taste of Country.

On Fogerty's 2013 album Wrote a Song for Everyone, he re-recorded the song as a duet with Bob Seger.

Garth Brooks recorded the song for the 2013 The Melting Pot album in the "Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences" compilation.

Dwight Yoakam released a version of the song as a single in 2014, after his character, Lyle Chumley, sang a fragment of the song in the "Force Majeure" episode of Under the Dome.[10]

Bill Haley and the Comets recorded a version of this song on their album "Rock Around the Country".

It was also recorded by Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks in 1986. In '86 they would have been called The Band but they paired up with Hawkins again for one album.[citation needed]

Use in media

Film

In 1978, the song was used in the film

The War. The song was also included in the movie Philadelphia. In 1990 it was also used in a third-season episode of Tour Of Duty, a TV action-drama series that followed the fortunes of a U.S. Army platoon during the Vietnam War. The song features in Haruki Murakami
's novel "Hear the Wind Sing" which was later made into a film. The song also is featured in the 2023 Netflix film We Have a Ghost, as Kevin plays the song in an attempt to induce Ernest to materialize.

Commercials

Creedence Clearwater Revival songs appeared in many films and commercials, in part because John Fogerty signed away legal control of his old recordings to Creedence's record label, Fantasy Records.[11] Fogerty objected to what he regarded as a misuse of his music in an NPR interview:

Folks will remember Forrest Gump and that was a great movie, but they don't remember all the really poor movies that Fantasy Records stuck Creedence music into: car commercials, tire commercials. I'm remembering a paint thinner ad at one point (actually, it was Thompson's Water Seal), the song "Who'll Stop the Rain". Oh, boy. That's clever, isn't it?[12]

Charts and certification

References

  1. ^ Hughes, Rob (August 14, 2020). "Creedence Clearwater Revival: Cosmo's Factory still excites in 50th birthday form". Classic Rock Magazine. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  2. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  3. ^ "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. December 11, 2003. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  4. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Who'll Stop the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival | Song Info". AllMusic.
  5. ^ "Spotlight Singles" (PDF). Billboard. January 24, 1970. p. 79. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
  6. ^ "CashBox Record Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. January 24, 1970. p. 34. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
  7. ^ "Single Reviews" (PDF). Record World. January 24, 1970. p. 8. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
  8. ^ Wawzenek (May 28, 2013). "Top 10 John Fogerty Lyrics". Retrieved June 10, 2022.
  9. ^ a b "Who'll Stop The Rain? by Creedence Clearwater Revival Songfacts". Songfacts.com. Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  10. ^ "Dwight Yoakam singing "Who'll stop the rain". 2x03 Under the dome". YouTube. August 9, 2014. Retrieved October 3, 2016.
  11. ^ Baker, Bob (November 1, 2002). "Fogerty to Wrangler: Song in ad 'ain't me' - SFGate". Articles.sfgate.com. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
  12. ^ Fogerty, John (December 16, 2005). "John Fogerty Travels 'The Long Road Home'". NPR. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
  13. ^ "Creedence Clearwater Revival – Who'll Stop the Rain" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50.
  14. Ultratip
    .
  15. ^ "Nederlandse Top 40 – Creedence Clearwater Revival" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40.
  16. ^ "Creedence Clearwater Revival Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard.
  17. ^ "American single certifications – Creedence Clearwater Revival – Who'll Stop the Rain". Recording Industry Association of America.

External links

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