Lookin Out My Back Door Album: Cosmo's Factory (1970)
Run Through The Jungle Album: Cosmo's Factory (1970)
The Midnight Special Album: Willy and the Poor Boys (1969)
by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Lookin Out My Back Door was partly written for John Fogerty's son Josh, who at the time was three years old. Fogerty said: "I knew he would love it if he heard me on the radio singing - doot doot doo, lookin' out my back door." In the song lyrics there is a reference to a parade passing by which John says was inspired by a Dr. Seuss book that he read as a kid titled To Think (That) I Saw It On Mulberry Street.
Much like The Beatles "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," many people thought Lookin Out My Back Door was about drugs when it was really an innocent song inspired by a child. According to the drug theory, the "Flying Spoon" was a cocaine spoon, and the crazy animal images were an acid trip. This was even less plausible than the Beatles misinterpretation, since Creedence Clearwater Revival was never into psychedelic drugs.
This is played in the film The Big Lebowski.
The album cover shows Creedence Clearwater Revival's rehearsal space, which is not their original digs: they started rehearsing in a shed in the backyard of their drummer Doug Clifford's house. Clifford once said it was "better than working in a factory," so their rehearsal rooms became known as "The Factory." Clifford's nickname was Cosmo, so this space was known as "Cosmo's Factory."
John Fogerty played a bit of dobro on Lookin Out My Back Door. He's seen holding the instrument on the cover of the 1969 album Green River, but "Lookin' Out My Back Door" is the only time he played it on a Creedence song. In 1993, he bought a dobro at a vintage guitar show and set out to master the instrument, playing it for hours on end and using it on his 1997 solo album Blue Moon Swamp. He got some help along the way from Jerry Douglas, a preeminent dobro player who was part of Alison Krauss' band Union Station.
This is often believed to be about the Vietnam War, as it referred to a "jungle" and was released in 1970. The fact that previous CCR songs such as "Who'll Stop the Rain?" and "Fortunate Son" were protests of the Vietnam War added to this theory. In response, John Fogerty said: "I think a lot of people thought that because of the times, but I was talking about America and the proliferation of guns, registered and otherwise. I'm a hunter and I'm not antigun, but I just thought that people were so gun-happy - and there were so many guns uncontrolled that it really was dangerous, and it's even worse now. It's interesting that it has taken 20-odd years to get a movement on that position."
This position is best demonstrated in this lyric:
200 million guns are loaded
Satan cries, "Take aim!"
"Run Through The Jungle" opens with jungle sound effects created by, according to Stu Cook, "lots of backwards recorded guitar and piano."
Speaking about the musical influence on this song, text limits
