Born on the Bayou

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"Born on the Bayou"

Song by Creedence Clearwater Revival
from the album Bayou Country
Released	January 5, 1969
Recorded	late 1968, RCA Studios, Los Angeles, California
Genre	Rock
Length	5:16
Label	Fantasy
Writer(s)	John Fogerty
Producer(s)	John Fogerty
Bayou Country track listing
None (None)	"Born on the Bayou" (1)	"Bootleg" (2)

"Born on the Bayou" is the first track on Creedence Clearwater Revival's second album, Bayou Country.

As the author, John Fogerty, commented:

"Born on the Bayou" was vaguely like "Porterville," about a mythical childhood and a heat-filled time, the Fourth of July. I put it in the swamp where, of course, I had never lived. It was late as I was writing. I was trying to be a pure writer, no guitar in hand, visualizing and looking at the bare walls of my apartment. Tiny apartments have wonderful bare walls, especially when you can't afford to put anything on them. "Chasing down a hoodoo." Hoodoo is a magical, mystical, spiritual, non-defined apparition, like a ghost or a shadow, not necessarily evil, but certainly other-worldly. I was getting some of that imagery from Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters."

The song was covered by the Foo Fighters, and the recording can be found on the Resolve CD Maxi released in 2006. The Blue Öyster Cult's famous rock song (Don't Fear) The Reaper takes inspiration from Born on the Bayou in its guitar riffs and use of the cowbell. The song was featured in The Return of Swamp Thing and Adam Sandler's 1998 film The Waterboy.