JOHN FOGERTY

The former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman on revisiting the band's hits, his childhood dreams, and the promise of immortality

- BRIAN HIATT

You recently rerecorded some of Creedence Clearwater Revival's biggest hits. What did you learn about those songs years later?

I was really unprepared for how deep I was gonna have to go. It wasn't just a guy that sings 'Proud Mary' every night. It was a guy trying to be 23 years old, to remember the way the radio was, remember what was going on in the world, and get to that particular space of why and how he had written 'Proud Mary'. I learned to make my mind or soul go back to that time. [My wife] Julie told me later she could see me literally doing it by the look on my face. Several months into it, I had a much deeper respect and awareness for what had gone on in 1968 or '69. In a sense, I did what the Beatles did, but I did it all by myself. I didn't have two other guys to write songs with me.

How did you pull off your incredible creative burst in 1969, when you had three classic albums in one year?

Near the end of 1968, I looked at 'Suzie Q' and basically said, "Now I'm a one-hit wonder." I became maniacally obsessed. I was staying up every night, writing songs all day, constantly thinking about what's good for my band. I managed to come up with those three albums by working harder than anybody else I knew - like working two or three jobs, two or three shifts.