Born On The Bayou

From the horse's mouth:

"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."

What's a hoodoo?

He's definitely saying "hoodoo there", not "hoodoo hare"

It's an awesome awesome song :)

Lynard Skynyrd is from Talahassee Florida, not Alabama.

I can see how people get confused easily on things like that.

Self-correction: The song is "Proud Mary" not "Rollin' On a River."

yeah, that's bogus. This song isn't about a BMX rider. "The man" probably refers to the government, or maybe his boss. Maybe his dad told him not to trade his hours for dollars, like he did.

A hoodoo is a practitioner of voodoo (this makes sense as there are were high racial tensions in the south, and most followers of voodoo/hoodoo were black), though it could also be used to describe a ghost/nothing.

Yeah, this songs excellent. Nicely toasted number to jam out for a rockin' 5 mins.

If you listen a live version it almost sounds like he is saying HooDoo Hare as in a rabbit. Which would make a lot more sense.

This is my favorite CCR song. Definitely about a childhood of some sort.