Mournful Fogerty song ruminates on a nation ‘poisoned with lies’
Gospel-tinged single references pandemic, outgoing president
John Fogerty is back with a socially charged new song.
On Wednesday morning, the Grammy-winning singer and former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman released “Weeping in the Promised Land,” his first original song since 2018’s “The Holy Grail.”
The mournful, gospel-tinged single finds Fogerty, 75, ruminating on the current state of the union, with lyrics about nurses crying and a well “poisoned with lies” that seem to reference the ongoing pandemic and outgoing presidential administration, respectively.
Later, in the song’s third verse, he sings about Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, Black victims of police brutality whose deaths sparked nationwide protests last summer. “Shoot you in your bed just like they done before,” Fogerty sings of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician who was killed by Louisville police officers in her own home.
He also details Floyd’s death, after ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for several minutes.
“Out in the street, on your neck with a knee,” Fogerty sings. “All the people are crying your last words / ‘I can’t breathe.’ “
Fogerty, of course, is no stranger to getting political in his music. He is perhaps best remembered for CCR’s Vietnam War protest song “Fortunate Son” in 1969, and denounced President Donald Trump’s unauthorized use of it at his rallies last year.
Although he wrote “Fortunate Son” in the ’60s, “to anyone that listened to the words, it appeared that I had actually written the song about him,” Fogerty told USA Today last fall. “Of course, I didn’t know Mr. Trump at the time, but he was part of that group of people I aimed the song at.”
Fogerty most recently released cover album “Fogerty’s Factory” in November, featuring new renditions of CCR classics with his three adult kids. The family band recorded the entire 12-track effort at home in lockdown. “As a dad, I am so grateful that this little postcard from the pandemic is there,” Fogerty said at the time. “I will remember this for the rest of my life.”