<\/p>\n
John Fogerty<\/a><\/strong>, 80, is shedding new light on how Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s<\/a> biggest hit came to be. In an interview with Guitar Player<\/a><\/em> magazine, Fogerty shares the real story behind \u201cHave You Ever Seen the Rain?\u201d, which he says is actually a breakup song.<\/p>\n At the height of Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s popularity in 1969, Fogerty was faced with an ultimatum from bandmates: drummer Doug Clifford<\/strong>, bass guitarist Stu Cook<\/strong>, and his brother, guitarist Tom Fogerty.<\/strong> John Fogerty was the band\u2019s lead guitarist and wrote most of their songs, including \u201cProud Mary,\u201d \u201cBorn on the Bayou,\u201d \u201cBad Moon Rising,\u201d \u201cLodi,\u201d \u201cGreen River,\u201d \u201cCommotion,\u201d \u201cDown on the Corner,\u201d and \u201cFortunate Son<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Fogerty\u2019s bandmates felt they were being unfairly left out of the songwriting process and therefore couldn\u2019t earn royalties on the songs\u2019 publishing. As the band prepared to record their sixth studio album Pendulum<\/em>, Fogerty\u2019s bandmates called a meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cI got sort of surprised \u2014 kind of shanghaied \u2014 into this,\u201d Fogerty says. \u201cAnd everybody was demanding, ‘We want to all write songs, and we want to make up our own parts on the records’ \u2014 that sort of thing. And it was basically an ultimatum.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: ’70s Rock Legend Announces 2026 Tour Dates: ‘We Are Coming Back!’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Reluctantly, Fogerty gave in but found that his bandmates weren\u2019t delivering new material when it came time to record the album.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was clear at this meeting that the band was going to be no more if I didn\u2019t acquiesce,\u201d he shares. \u201cSo, of course, I did. I mean, the band was a beloved thing to me, and I guess it probably comes off as sounding a little haughty, or maybe arrogant… I knew how to get there and make it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo November comes, we start showing up at the studio,\u201d he says. But no one, aside from him, was bringing in songs. \u201cSo I start filling in the gap.\u201d One of those gap fillers was \u201cHave You Ever Seen the Rain?\u201d, a song that he says \u201cis literally about Creedence breaking up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHave You Ever Seen the Rain?\u201d might have been written about the demise of Creedence Clearwater Revival, but the song would go on to be the band\u2019s biggest hit. Released in January 1971, the song peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart<\/a>, a weak showing for a CCR song.<\/p>\n However, the streaming era has made the song more popular than ever. With more than two billion streams on Spotify alone, \u201cHave You Ever Seen the Rain?\u201d is the band\u2019s biggest hit, followed by \u201cFortunate Son\u201d with 1.7 billion streams.<\/p>\n John Fogerty just completed his Legacy Tour<\/a> and will play select dates in 2026.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfacSIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\ud83c\udfac<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Nov 16, 2025, where it first appeared in the Celebs<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Fogerty, 80, is shedding new light on how Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s biggest hit came to be. In an interview with Guitar Player magazine, Fogerty shares the real story behind \u201cHave You Ever Seen the Rain?\u201d, which he says is actually a breakup song. At the height of Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s popularity in 1969, Fogerty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2161093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[414356,310213,414357,343600,306985,414355],"class_list":["post-2161092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-biggest-hit","tag-creedence-clearwater-revival","tag-doug-clifford","tag-fortunate-son","tag-john-fogerty","tag-tom-fogerty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/70s-Rock-Legend-Shares-Haunting-Meaning-Behind-Have-You-Ever.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2161094,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161092\/revisions\/2161094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2161093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2161092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2161092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Accolades For “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”<\/h2>\n