Creedence Clearwater Revival vs the Grateful Dead vs the Band

Odd timing, but, even though I would have known most of the earlier hits, "Someday Never Comes" was the first CCR song I experienced on the radio in the here and now. On that basis, it still holds great nostalgic appeal for me (listening to it as I type, and it sounds really good), but if I step back, it doesn't rate with the '68-'70 stuff, and I like "Hey Tonight" and "Sweet Hitchhiker" better too.

Suzie Q is a Dale Hawkins song

"Someday Never Comes" is simply a song about my parents undergoing a divorce when I was a child and me not knowing many things. When my dad left me, he told me to be a man and someday I would understand everything. Now, I'm here basically repeating the same thing really. I had a son in 1966 and I went away when he was five years old or so and again told him "someday" he would understand everything. Really, all kids ask questions like "Daddy, when are we going fishing?" and parents always answer with "someday", but in reality someday never comes and kids never learn what they're supposed to learn.
-John Fogerty, 1973

Nice quote. Someone was paying attention:

"My son turned ten just the other day
He said, 'Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw,' I said 'Not today
I got a lot to do,' he said, 'That's okay'"
--Harry Chapin, 1974

fogerty didn't write suzy q tho right?

I wasn't trying to make any point about Fogerty as a songwriter, just why to me a song like Someday Never Comes is clearly not as good as their other, bigger hits. Which was all just an attempt at figuring out crustaceanrebel's question of "whether it's potentially familiarity with their hits that makes the other stuff seem lesser."

wiki says that "cat's in the cradle" was based on a poem written by chapin's wife, sandy. their source for that says she wrote the poem a year or so before HC began working with it, and that she based it on an unidentified country song:

"It was about a man and a woman sitting at their kitchen table and looking out to the backyard. They had a swing set and a sandbox and bicycle in the corner," she said. "They were talking about how it all went by so fast and how they could have spent more time, and now the kids are gone. That song put me in the mood for writing a lyric."

The Dead does have a heck of a deep catalog of original songs.

Their 'greatest hits'.

Truckin'
Touch of Grey
Sugar Magnolia
Casey Jones
Uncle John's Band
Friend of the Devil
Franklin's Tower
Estimated Prophet
Eyes of the World
Box of Rain
U.S. Blues
The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
One More Saturday Night
Fire on the Mountain
The Music Never Stopped
Hell in a Bucket
Ripple

Ok, for original songs of note…not including covers for which they were known.

Deal
Loser
Wharf Rat
Sugaree
Brown Eyed Women
Dire Wolf
New Speedway Boogie
Brokedown Palace
Black Peter
Bertha
Cumberland Blues
China Cat Sunflower
Ship of Fools
Jack Straw
Ramble On Rose
He's Gone
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
Alabama Getaway

These tunes are original ones that they would use to often go outward on with improvisation.

Dark Star
Playing in the Band
The Other One
Bird Song
Help On the Way/Slipknot
Feel Like a Stranger

As for the lack of 'hits', I think part of it was they never really played the game and then oddly left so many of their classic tunes to be done on solo records by Weir and Garcia, some with the band backing on some in stripped down company. Part of this as they were leaving Warner's in the early 70s to start their own label.

They got down to deeper songwriting a bit later and I would imagine their rep probably kept them from ever getting on much AM radio where CCR flourished. Even in the studio most of these tunes are more like 4 minutes plus too and I'd say the compact genius berevity of some of the Creedence tunes definitely helped them getting on the radio.

I'd say more than a few of the Deads songs have had a good life afterwards being played by other artists.

Yeah, I don't think the Dead ever wrote any songs that were top 10 material (apart from Touch of Grey obv). Casey Jones was the closest but I'm guessing the cocaine reference held it back. LIke for that reason it's not something my mom would listen to.

album tracks on Willy as strong as the singles imo: Effigy, Don't Look Now are of a piece with Fortunate Son

New (Old) Warehouse Decree: EVERY FRIDAY is CREEDENCE FRIDAY

hate that Chapin song so much

you are dead to me

it was inevitable

i love CCR but it has to be The Band.

guys the point of this poll is so the CCR fans can get a W on the board. please do not vote in this poll unless you are voting for CCR I will be sad if they don't win, everybody deserves a win now & then.

love all these dudes, but at this point in my life it's the Band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjBBDJ5OiT0

Adam I don't know what your display name means but it is cracking me up somehow, ty

dick's picks 28. it's a winner.

Dick's Picks 3 + 10 are pretty good, although I'm not really well-versed on the late-70s. Dick's Picks 22 is just MASSIVE and really shouldn't be passed up on.

Yeah, 22 is the Dead record I'd play for Velvets fans who think they hate the Dead. This thing could go toe-to-toe with The Quine Tapes (and I think it even has more feedback).

22 is the great loud 60s one right? maybe the earliest live thing out?

this isn't that loud...it borders on actual rocking

it's like the Grateful Dead work up a little half-chub and Deadhead act like it's a raging boner

i feel like i should change my display name to some laboured wordplay on your display name and the song 'mississippi half-step uptown toodeloo' rather than engaging with your point

they have a word in common and are both p polysyllabic

haha do it!

22 is the great loud 60s one right? maybe the earliest live thing out?

The former, yes. The latter, I dunno...but everything pre-'68 I've heard has been decidedly more folkie than skronky. This is skronky.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

what the fuck? I thought it was closing tomorrow yesterday? Finish this shit!

it's like the Grateful Dead work up a little half-chub and Deadhead act like it's a raging boner

― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 14, 2012 6:27 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

Having a hard time deciding between the Dead and CCR. CCR have more classic songs, though lately I've been listening more to the Dead (mainly WD & AB). The Dead's sound on those albums seems a bit richer & more rewarding of late, though of course they're not as tight & effective as CCR. Very tough one.

nate you gotta vote CCR. if the CCR dudes don't win it's sad times. plus I don't know if this helps but in case you didn't read through the thread CCR is like a giant boner. everybody loves a big boner so vote CCR.

lol

CCR Boner Jamz 2012

Boner the Bayou

Porterville-Gloomy-Walking on the Water is a great album-closing trio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zniQKofm-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1PpTXtlnb0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceRg_rxXQ_E

nate you gotta vote CCR. if the CCR dudes don't win it's sad times. plus I don't know if this helps but in case you didn't read through the thread CCR is like a giant boner. everybody loves a big boner so vote CCR.

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 3:47 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i voted for the band!

i'm boner agnostic!

my point about boners is that the dead are only ever like "crazy" or "rocking" FOR THE DEAD.....the Dead are the Lawrence, Kansas of rock bands...like everyone in Lawrence is always like "Oh we have a really great local music scene.....for Kansas"...."Oh we have a lot of arts and culture....(for Kansas)"....."We're a really progressive city....(for Kansas)"

haha i was kind of starting to like the dead more too, like i dig american beauty and i was listening to the renaissance fairgrounds gig sometimes but now i'm back in h8r mode

it's an easy place to get to

haha, M@tt, have you ever actually been to Lawrence? It's really pretty nice, and much of the rest of Kansas is truly cornfields and Obama-is-a-Marxist billboards.

yeah I actually hear you & you're right - the Dead in rocking mode isn't anybody else's proper rocking mode, it's not an adrenalized thing. the only stuff that's really burn-it-down like CCR live is, like, the big snare-crack in St Stephen when they're doing it live in the late 60s. but it's like...its own vibe, which actually was why I hated the Dead back when ('you like this?') and is why once I came around it seemed so special

haha, M@tt, have you ever actually been to Lawrence? It's really pretty nice, and much of the rest of Kansas is truly cornfields and Obama-is-a-Marxist billboards.

― Ermahgerd Thomas (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, August 15, 2012 4:17 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, my sister and brother in law go there, at least once a year...and they are right. it's a great town....for kansas!

is it too late to do a write-in vote for kansas?
http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album-Kansas-The-Best-of-Kansas.jpg

this thread has reached....the point of no return

I don't even have the words for how happy that joke makes me

lolllz

has anyone posted the complete royal albert hall CCR show yet? apologies if i missed it. it is so sick!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D6vas5iLvY