Watch An Incredible Creedence Clearwater Revival Performance Of ‘Who’ll Stop the Rain’ Live

John Fogerty wrote “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” a song initially sung by Creedence Clearwater Revival for their 1970 album Cosmo’s Factory. There were three double-sided singles from that album that charted in the top five on the Billboard Pop Singles list, and this one was the first of two to reach No. 2 on the American charts, the other being “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”/”Long As I Can See the Light.”

Although the song is sometimes taken as a protest of the Vietnam War (much like the CCR hit, “Fortunate Son”), when Fogerty sang it at the Arizona state fair in 2012, he told the crowd that he had been at Woodstock watching the rain pour down. He saw festivalgoers dancing in the pouring rain, many of them unclothed and huddling together to keep warm. (texasautotrim.com) The next week, he went down to write “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” which was not a protest against Vietnam but rather a recollection of his time at Woodstock.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Fogerty was asked if there are any “lyrically specific meanings besides the symbolic dimension” for the song. The singer said: “Certainly, I was talking about Washington when I wrote the song, but I remember bringing the master version of the song home and playing it. My son Josh was four years old at the time, and after he heard it, he said, ‘Daddy stop the rain.’ And my wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well, not quite.’”

Watch rare footage of Creedence Clearwater Revival performing the song “Who’ll Stop the Rain” below.