It wasn’t their only single to fall victim to the Creedence curse, but given its lyrics, it’s amazing “Bad Moon Rising” made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 at all.
John Fogerty paired his foreboding words with a rollicking melody, and the result is a track so bright you have to concentrate to recognize it’s pretty nihilistic.
When Creedence Clearwater Revival released it as the lead single from Green River (their second of a remarkable three Top Ten albums in 1969), “Bad Moon Rising” became one of five CCR singles to stop just one slot shy of the top of the chart.
Its dire lyrics spoke for the times (and sadly still do), but its happy melody and famously mondegreen chorus made “Bad Moon Rising” an earworm and the band’s signature song. In the more than fifty years since its release, a wide array of artists have covered it, from Bo Diddley to Emmylou Harris to The Killers–and (of course) to Bruce Springsteen.
Springsteen has been a Fogerty fan for as long as he’s been playing music, first covering him in concert the very same week “Bad Moon Rising” was released. No audio exists from that show, but every one of Bruce’s seven “Bad Moon Rising” performances circulates among collectors. His debut performance came at an under-the-radar Halloween show in 1987 with the E Street Band (operating undercover as The Terrorists of Love) at McLoone’s Rum Runner in Sea Bright, New Jersey.
From a Jersey shore club to a French royal castle: six months later Bruce turned up in Paris, where he concluded his four-song set at the S.O.S. Racisme Concert with a solo acoustic performance of Fogerty’s classic.
That was Bruce’s last “Bad Moon Rising” performance for sixteen years. When it surfaced next, he was performing it with the original artist.
Fogerty made nightly appearances with Springsteen on the short-lived (and ill-fated) Vote for Change Tour in 2004, rotating through a selection of his greatest hits backed by Bruce and the E Street Band. “Bad Moon Rising” featured at three of those shows, starting with its first outing in Cleveland.
The highest-quality recording of a Springsteen “Bad Moon Rising” performance is the most obscure of the bunch: a private benefit for his kids’ school in April 2005 at The Stone Pony.
Bruce’s final “Bad Moon Rising” performance to date was on the Wrecking Ball Tour, when he honored a fan’s request in Leeds, England.
Even though it’s been a full decade since that last “Bad Moon Rising” performance, don’t bet against another appearance.
Bruce has covered more of John Fogerty’s songs than he has practically any other artist. This is our seventh entry on Fogerty covers, and we’re not done yet.
Bad Moon Rising
First performed: October 31, 1987 (Sea Bright, NJ)
Last performed: July 24, 2013 (Leeds, England)
